


Set All Trappings Aside

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: A Ribbon at a Time [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Class Differences, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23496922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: After months of flirtation, a contract on Josephine's life brings Adaar's feelings for her closer to the surface than ever. It highlights, too, all of their differences, all of the reasons a relationship between them would not last. But Adaar is a hopeful woman at heart; if Josephine can set all trappings aside, then so can she.
Relationships: Female Adaar/Josephine Montilyet, Female Inquisitor/Josephine Montilyet
Series: A Ribbon at a Time [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/335089
Comments: 94
Kudos: 189





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While the context for this story is the [Of Somewhat Fallen Fortune](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Of_Somewhat_Fallen_Fortune) questline, some of the conversations within it didn't quite fit for this Inquisitor. The resulting fic is a twist on the canon romance.
> 
> This Adaar and Josephine have featured in other fics, so you may miss a little context if you haven't read [Promising](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2709206) or [Truth-Telling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14822153), which both come before this one.

On any other day, Josephine would have enjoyed this: a beautiful, cloudless afternoon in Val Royeaux; the scent of delicate, baking pastries floating on a soft breeze; Adaar standing close at her side, close enough that clothes and arms brushed. That last, especially.

But today, there was no room between them for unspoken fantasies, sparks of electricity, daydreams. Adaar's tension simmered in her taut arm, fingers twitching as if to seize her belt knife at the slightest provocation—or maybe ready to pull loose her daggers instead. Her dark eyes flicked to every passing face. She stood so close not for any courtly reason, but because she clearly expected an assassin to materialize out of the nearest rosebush and make an attempt right there in the street, while the passersby tittered and gasped.

It _was_ Orlais. They probably would titter at such an event.

But she knew that she would not have received such a cordial warning only to be targeted fifteen minutes later. That would be unprofessional, and the House of Repose was anything but.

"Inquisitor," she murmured. "Please do not be so alarmed."

Adaar spared a glance down at her. " _Alarmed_ is an understatement."

"I am safe enough here," she reasoned, though despite the cloudless sky, despite a bard's voice twining sweetly through the air, despite the scent of flowers in the garden just behind them—all so familiar, Val Royeaux as she'd known it for so long—she did feel a chill. "And there is a way to undo this."

Adaar glanced around again, gave a grumble of frustration, and took Josephine's arm, tugging her into an alcove out of the sun. She did this very gently, her fingers leaving only the slightest impression in the crook of Josephine's elbow.

"Yes, there is," she said, lowering her voice. She glanced over Josephine's shoulder once—looking for threats from the only direction that remained—and then refocused on Josephine's face, her gaze heated. "Point me at the House of Repose, and I will eliminate them."

There was no humor in her voice; there was no anger, not even veiled; but the chill in Josephine's blood deepened, biting like the wind that always snuck through Skyhold's wounds. 

She hadn't forgotten what Adaar was capable of. No, there was evidence enough—history enough—of that. It was just that this coldness, this ferocity, was something new, different. In Josephine's company, she was gregarious, smiling, cheerful, never without a joke or three; the visible daggers and hidden knives seemed like a mistake, lethal weapons accidentally hung on a gentle, sweet woman. Even with blades in her hands, in the practice yard, she joked and ribbed and laughed. Every round seemed like a game to her, punctuated with a grin.

But for ten years, Adaar had been a mercenary. Josephine imagined that plenty of clients had pointed her at a target before, to great success. The Inquisition had pointed her at such targets. But she had never worn this face, still and calculating, so out of place on her features.

"This is a personal matter," Josephine said. "I could not use Inquisition resources to—"

Adaar let loose a stream of curses under her breath, composure dissolving; they were heated enough that the surrounding passersby gave her frightened little glances before scurrying on their way. But it was better than that awful look that had so briefly settled on her face.

"I'll take the Valo-Kas with me." There was passion in her voice now. "It won't be an Inquisition operation. This is no longer your Great Game, Josephine. This is your _life_. I won't wait while they—"

At a loss for anything else to do—she had never seen steady, implacable Adaar so rattled before—Josephine reached out to take her hand. Adaar's palm was thickly calloused; the little ridges caused by Josephine's laboring with pens seemed minute by comparison. Adaar stopped, mid-sentence, and looked down at her as if startled.

She didn't pull away, though.

"I know the House of Repose," Josephine said, holding Adaar's gaze. "I have a little time. I can take care of this without bloodshed—surely they are amiable to that, if they brought us here, to give me warning—"

"They're an _assassin's league_ ," Adaar protested, but she looked more bewildered than angry now.

"You don't understand. It's business; this is only what they're paid to do."

" _I_ don't understand?" Josephine had never seen this look on Adaar's face before, either: not just confused, but hurt, her mouth twisting with it. "I've _been_ a mercenary, Lady Montilyet. Fancy contracts or not, I know how this business works." 

Adaar pulled her hand away and took a step back, and Josephine silently cursed her own clumsiness. She _was_ rattled, after all, to misstep so badly. She knew—not from being told, of course, just from months of observation—that Adaar was sensitive about her own low-born roots. Not ashamed, never, but she'd been thrust into what passed as a noble's role with no experience, and Josephine had worked so hard to show her that it was all easy enough to understand, to navigate...only to take all that back with three little words.

It was just that her head was still swimming with the outrage of it, the—the _injustice_ of it. A contract a century old stood between her and something she'd worked her whole life to obtain? A contract she'd never known about? No one had warned her that such a thing could be possible, that she could come this far in righting her family's status only to be turned away at the eleventh hour.

"Please—Inquisitor." The right title, now, not her name, to show her the respect she deserved, but Adaar didn't react the way a dignitary would; she bore it more like a burden than a privilege, and her frown deepened. Josephine had to work to make her voice level again, but she succeeded, hands clasped before her to hide any trembling. "That was poorly said. I apologize."

Adaar merely watched her, no emotion discernible in her eyes, and didn't reply. 

Josephine's heart twisted in her chest. They'd never argued. In jest, maybe, or professionally, when they disagreed on war table matters, but not like this. She hated it, but she had to make Adaar understand. If there was a path before them that offered no bloodshed, only a little time, then she had to take it.

She took a steadying breath. "I only meant that they've extended me a courtesy, based on...extenuating circumstances...and, if my interpretation of that is correct, I have a little time to negotiate this before it gets out of hand. It's not a typical situation. The usual rules don't apply."

"And if it isn't?"

Josephine blinked. "If it isn't…?"

"If your interpretation is wrong."

For a long moment, they looked at one another, and Josephine wished that Adaar would not stand so far away; she wished that she had not brought this trouble to Adaar at all. But she'd had precious few alternatives.

"If my interpretation is wrong," she said, "then I suppose we must do things your way."

Adaar's face softened minutely, maybe hearing Josephine's reluctance. She closed the gap between them and placed her hands on Josephine's shoulders. 

This was a dire situation. Lives were at stake—not just _her_ life. Her poor messengers. Her heart ached for them, guilt and grief tangled up. But when Adaar looked at her like that, she...didn't forget, exactly. But the pain eased. When Adaar touched her, capable hands molding to her shoulders like they alone could protect her, her heart beat with something that was neither guilt nor grief.

"We will do things the way you like, until the House of Repose sends someone to kill another of your messengers, or you," Adaar said. "I'm going to assign guards to you; Leliana and Cullen can decide which of their people are best-suited."

"Really, I think that is unnecessary." It was a weak protest.

Adaar ignored this. "As soon as there is another attempt, you are out of time. Understood?"

Adaar didn't pull rank very often. She preferred to wheedle and convince everyone around the war table to do as she liked by getting them to see her side, not just by demanding it.

"You can't eliminate an entire assassin's league," Josephine told her quietly.

"I'm sure Leliana has some ideas." Adaar held up a hand when Josephine opened her mouth to argue. "No, I don't plan to kill them all. Something more creative would be required. I'll have to think." She eyed Josephine, one eyebrow raised. "I want a plan in place. In case."

"I suppose that is a fair compromise," Josephine allowed.

Adaar fixed her with a serious stare. "For the tongue-lashing Leliana is going to give me, I could ask for a lot more. She will not like leaving this untended."

"It is my decision. Leliana will understand that." _Reluctantly_ , she thought, but didn't say.

Adaar grimaced. "I didn't say she was going to give _you_ a tongue-lashing."

Josephine managed a weak smile. "Oh, she will. She just doesn't scare me as much as she scares you."

Adaar snorted, reaching up to pull the length of her braid over her shoulder. "She doesn't scare me. This, though? _This_ scares me. The Inquisition needs you. I can't seriously look at a direct threat to one of my advisors and do nothing."

"I don't plan to do nothing," Josephine declared, bristling. "And I'm certain I will need your help, so _you_ will not be doing nothing, either. But these are dangerous times, Inquisitor. Whether it's the House of Repose or a wandering demon, we are all in danger. There are other ambassadors."

Adaar's dark eyes blazed. "Forget your post. Forget the fucking Inquisition. You're my friend first and my ambassador second, and I'm allowed to fret for your life."

It shouldn't have warmed her the way it did, but she felt herself begin to smile, anyway, a flush rising to her cheeks to replace the chill. She'd have been hard-pressed to stop it. 

Maybe she remained unconvinced that Adaar felt any romantic affection for her, no matter how Leliana teased. A bit of harmless flirting sometimes, nothing more. 

But there _was_ affection. The warmth of it felt as magical as any cloudless day in Val Royeaux. 

"Then by all means," Josephine said. "Fret away. But I am sure that I am safe, so long as I'm with you."

Adaar's eyes searched her face. If Josephine wasn't mistaken, her cheeks had darkened a little, too.

"I will make sure of it," Adaar said—low, ardent, a promise. It did terrible, wonderful things to Josephine's stomach.

Adaar cleared her throat and looked up, glancing carefully around the courtyard. Apparently satisfied with her findings, she removed her hands from Josephine's shoulders. Josephine missed the warmth of them, the steadying weight of them, immediately.

"Time to get back to Skyhold," Adaar said. "We can discuss the details of your plan on the way. Stick close."

As if she had to ask. Josephine walked at Adaar's side, arms occasionally brushing, and wished she could stick much closer than that.


	2. Chapter 2

Once they'd crossed the Waking Sea by ship, Adaar convinced Josephine to ride in the wagon with Vivienne—who could both entertain her and protect her, should it come to that—and rode slightly behind their little party on horseback, watching the open plains around her with unease. She'd never been wound so tight in her entire damn life. Which was saying something, after the last several months.

It was just... _she_ had been the target then. Her, and all the idiots who tagged along with her, who had magic or steel to protect them.

Not Josephine. Josephine was supposed to be safe. Tucked away in their lofty mountain fortress, where the worst that could happen to her was a particularly annoying noble with an axe to grind.

But who knew, with the House of Repose, if even Skyhold would be safe? It was a sleepless thought, one that had kept Adaar awake every night since they'd left Val Royeaux.

Cassandra appeared ahead, guiding her horse around the wagon. "Nothing," she said in response to Adaar's raised eyebrow. "It's not a good location for an ambush, Inquisitor. The House of Repose surely knows better."

Despite that, she rode with only one hand on the reins, the other resting on the grip of her sword. Her shield hung ready from the saddle. Not one to be caught by surprise, Cassandra. Adaar had always appreciated that about her.

"They will wait until we're in the mountain pass, if they plan to attack at all," Cassandra continued.

Usually, Adaar appreciated Cassandra's pragmatism, too. Right now, however, it was about as welcome as a kick in the stomach.

" _If_ ," she repeated, holding desperately onto hope. She wondered if she could convince Josephine to lie down under one of the wagon benches the entire way up the mountain. "You don't think they will?"

Cassandra hesitated. "I do not know. I believe Josephine knows better than us, but I also believe that her judgment is clouded. I will feel more certain once we have Leliana's input, but by then, the mountain will be behind us."

"So prepare for the worst, then?"

"It has not failed me as a strategy so far."

Perhaps Adaar could persuade Josephine to put on a spare set of armor. Anything that might prevent an arrow from piercing the oilcloth covering on the wagon and driving straight through her chest.

"Forgive me for prying," Cassandra said, interrupting Adaar's catastrophizing, "but I do not think I have ever seen you this agitated. You always make light of danger."

And Cassandra hated it. In the beginning, she'd usually had a choice word or two about how Adaar ought to take all this more seriously. The comments had eventually tapered off as Adaar did her job and did it well, despite her habit of taunting demons, rogue templars, ancient magisters, and whatever else had ears.

"That's when the danger is coming for me," Adaar said, "not someone…" _I care about_ , she thought, but decided against it. "...else," she finished.

Cassandra shifted a little in her saddle. "Have you…" she began, then paused, mulling over her words the way only Cassandra could. She didn't mull, actually; she _deliberated_.

"Have I what?" Adaar prompted.

Cassandra shook her head. "Never mind. It is none of my business."

"No, no, go on," Adaar said. Cassandra could hardly make things worse at this point, after all. "I've certainly badgered you enough with _my_ invasive questions. It's only fair."

"When you put it like that." Cassandra wore a trace of a smile now. "You are...fond of her."

Adaar pulled a face. "Yes," she said, which had the merit of being both true and not incriminating.

Cassandra snorted. "I would never have suspected that you could be as recalcitrant as me," she said, very dryly.

"Every day is an opportunity to learn new things," Adaar told her, grinning.

Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Very well. Are the two of you involved?" Before Adaar could recover from Cassandra's bluntness—really, she ought to have braced for it—she went on. "I feel as if Leliana would have complained of it to me if you were, but perhaps there are things in this world she _doesn't_ know."

Adaar laughed. "First of all, no, there aren't. And second of all—no. We aren't."

"I see. My mistake—it seemed very much as if…"

Adaar cleared her throat. "I don't really think it would be proper, would it?"

A crease appeared between Cassandra's brows. "Because you are the Inquisitor? I didn't imagine you thought yourself that far above us."

"No, no, not that." Adaar fiddled with the hilt of her belt knife. "She's a noble. Until all this...business...I was a mercenary. We just don't fit."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cassandra's frown deepen. "Does she think so?"

Adaar recognized the early signs of Cassandra's stubbornness, and dug in her own heels, too. "Don't know. Haven't asked."

"Then how do you know that you don't fit?"

"Call it an educated guess," Adaar said, exasperated.

"If you are a simple mercenary, then it would hardly be an _educated_ guess."

Despite her annoyance, Adaar chuckled. Cassandra's frown twitched toward a smile again. They rode on in companionable silence for a moment as Adaar considered.

"Even if she does feel the same," she ventured, "could her...society...ever accept me? Nobles strike me as snooty." It was the most toothless word she could think of. Nothing compared to how they _really_ were. How she knew some of them to be.

"You aren't without rank," Cassandra pointed out. "It's unusual—"

"Savior to some, damned heretic to others, yes."

"But it affords you some status," Cassandra pressed. "Besides, the Montilyets are minor nobles at best, given their troubles."

"Someday—and I hope it is soon—the Inquisition will not be necessary any longer, and then I will be what I always was. And once _this_ is all done, she will only have risen." 

Adaar could see Cassandra marshaling her arguments. Bless her. They had become friends, despite all the business at the beginning, and Cassandra was loyal to her friends.

But Adaar didn't want to argue, not about this. She didn't want to get her hopes up. She got them up every time Josephine looked at her, anyway; she didn't need more encouragement.

She didn't need _hope_ to turn into _expectation._ She'd really be in trouble then.

Luckily, because they were friends, she knew exactly how to put Cassandra off the topic entirely. She sighed, adopting a mopey, lovelorn air. "It's no good, Cassandra, though I appreciate your optimism. It just isn't meant to be."

Cassandra gave an indignant huff, exactly as expected. "Long though I have loved silly romance novels, I have always thought that they were unrealistic. I see that you are determined to live one out page by page, however."

"It's a good story, isn't it?" Adaar said, shooting a smile sideways at her. "A quick, loveable rogue—nice woman, really, despite her spotted history—pining after a lady of means. Her feelings all the more pure for knowing they can never be returned—"

"I think you are determined to be star-crossed," Cassandra continued, radiating disapproval.

"Is that so?"

"It is," Cassandra said. "I'll leave you to your pining."

Adaar laughed; Cassandra dug in her heels and sent her horse back to the front of the wagon, leaving Adaar alone.

It was sort of funny, when she was bantering about it with Cassandra—laying it on real thick, too—but as the quiet grew around her, the humor faded. She had hoped, long and hard, that this infatuation would simply melt away, that she would someday cross Josephine's path without light and warmth filling her up inside and spilling over, but by all indications, she was more deeply entrenched than ever.

A pity, and a shame, that it had taken her near thirty years to find someone she liked as much as she liked Josephine. Given the state of the world, she doubted she had another thirty years in which to find someone else.

She rode up behind the wagon and dismounted. A few quick steps closed the gap again; she left her reins loosely looped around the back post, then heaved herself up and through into the covered compartment, a welcome stillness after the gusting winds of the plains.

Vivienne looked up with a smile. "Good of you to join us, my dear. I'm sure Cassandra can handle the watch."

"Actually," Adaar said, though it was always daunting to order Vivienne around, "would you mind taking the rear? I just need a bit of a rest, then I'll head back out."

If Vivienne thought this unnecessary, she didn't voice it; she simply inclined her head with a duchess's worth of grace and brushed past, out into the cold, leaving the wagon empty except for Adaar and Josephine.

"Inquisitor," Josephine said in greeting, with a dip of her head.

"Ambassador."

For a moment, an uncomfortable silence held. Adaar sat opposite Josephine, moving with the rattle of the wagon. Astonishing how little room there was for her legs in a space like this. Josephine didn't look uncomfortable in the least, one ankle tucked behind the other, small book open on her lap, dark blue skirts perfectly arranged. It was a simple dress, comfortable for travel, paired with boots rather than slippers.

Simplicity suited her. Finery suited her. What didn't suit her?

Oblivious to her internal dramatics, Josephine asked, "Is everything all right?"

"Fine," Adaar said, automatic. "Doubt they're going to come out of the fields and try anything in broad daylight."

She shut her book. "I meant...is everything all right, between us?"

Adaar cast her a puzzled look. "Of course."

Josephine let out a relieved breath. "I'm glad to hear it. I did not like arguing with you, and we have not spoken much since…"

Adaar cleared her throat, rubbed the back of her neck. "Sorry. I've been preoccupied."

"Yes. With protecting me." Her eyes were very soft, warmed by her small smile. "Thank you."

"Of course," Adaar said again. All the other words seemed to have flown out of her head. All those reminders not to turn _hope_ to _expectation_ had fled with them.

"I have devised a plan," Josephine said, straightening up a little. "The du Paraquettes cannot overturn the contract at present, lacking status as they are, but if we can raise them to nobility again…"

"Would they agree to that, do you think?"

"Let us hope I can convince them. But if we could restore their status, I imagine that they would agree. It seems a fair trade."

For a moment, Adaar's hopes lifted. If these people could just be given status like handing out candy, then maybe… 

"Didn't realize you could elevate people just like that," she commented, in what she hoped was a casual manner.

"Certainly not _just like that_." Josephine toyed with one frayed corner of her book, frowning, eyes a little unfocused. "I will need to offer someone...maybe several someones...a few favors. But it can be done."

Adaar could imagine how much more costly the favors would be for a Vashoth. She set the idea aside. "I don't love the sound of that."

Josephine waved this away. "No different than the capital I've traded for the Inquisition. Simpler, even. It will only cost time."

"I guess you would know. I personally don't have much experience trading in these intangible debts."

"Do not sell yourself short," Josephine chastised. "You've brokered many deals for the Inquisition."

"With much smarter people pointing the way."

"You forget that I stand at the war table with you," Josephine said, lips quirking in a smile. "I know what cleverness you are capable of, whatever modesty you hide behind."

The praise warmed her a little. "Still, I know nothing about turning ordinary folk into nobles. I'm afraid your cleverness will have to suffice for this one."

Her head tilted, hazel eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Perhaps. But turning ordinary folk into legends? You know something about that. Surely _that_ is the greater challenge."

She really knew how to cut through all of Adaar's admonishments to herself. A handful of words in Josephine's mouth was as deadly as one of Adaar's knives.

"I would hate to always be the target of your honeyed tongue," she said, with a slightly helpless grin; she hoped it looked careless rather than besotted. It was the best she could manage. Truth, disguised as jest. "My insides are all a-flutter."

For a moment, it looked as if Josephine might press the topic further; then she sat back, a more somber set to her mouth. "It will not be easy," she said. "But it can be done. Despite the arguments I imagine Leliana will make."

"Well, tiebreaker," Adaar sighed, some of the tightness in her chest easing. "I outrank her."

Josephine inclined her head. "Thank you." 

Her fingers ran down the edges of the book's cover again, and Adaar noticed the feather charm dangling from the marked page. She remembered the letter she'd sent with it from the Hinterlands, the bruised wrist she'd nursed while she'd written it. She could hardly believe such a paltry little thing had made it out of Haven when they'd fled.

But Josephine had rescued it, somehow, for some reason.

It was a small space, easy to reach across and touch the dangling feather. Josephine's fingers paused in their tracing.

"You don't have to…" Adaar paused, tried to get her words in order. "I know these are useless trinkets."

Josephine looked up, eyes meeting Adaar's. "I happen to like them. Besides, it makes a pretty bookmark, doesn't it? Hardly useless."

They were treading dangerous territory. Adaar should not have leaned forward. It would be so easy to close the remaining distance, touch her fingers to Josephine's cheek, tip her chin up…

There had been other moments like this, and every one of them, Adaar could have sworn that Josephine was expecting just that. Waiting, her lips slightly parted, her eyes focused so intently on Adaar's. Hoping.

But she shouldn't. Couldn't.

She sat back. "Well, then," she said. If her voice was too loud for the space, if it pushed out all chance of intimacy, that was for the best. "I won't question your tastes, which I know to be very fine." 

She told herself that she was imagining the flicker of disappointment in Josephine's face. Easy to do; whatever Adaar thought she had seen one moment was gone the next, as if it had never existed.

"You have a knack for finding pretty things," Josephine said. "And in the strangest places."

"Maybe it's hereditary. My dad was the same way. By the time my parents made it to the Free Marches, he'd picked up all sorts of things on the road. Cleaned up some of them to sell, but kept a fair amount of the rest." She managed a chuckle. "Drove my ma up the wall, the way she told it, but I liked the things he found. He always remembered exactly where he'd picked it up. Or he was a convincing storyteller, I suppose."

"Another inherited trait, I believe," Josephine said with a smile. "What happened to it all when you left the farm?"

"I left it with Jana—the neighbor I told you about, the one looking after the place. It's probably all still sitting in a crate in the corner of the root cellar. I took one thing with me, but in the interest of not jingling with every step…"

Josephine smothered a laugh with her hand, as if the idea delighted her. "A different combat strategy, certainly. What did you take with you?"

Adaar reached into her coat and pulled a tiny journal from one of the interior pockets. She flipped to the center and retrieved a folded piece of paper, then unfolded it and handed it to Josephine.

It was a drawing. A sketch, really, of a miniature hourglass, a chain threaded through one end. Not the original sketch; no, she didn't dare carry that out into this dangerous world with her, not after what had happened to the object itself.

"It's pretty," Josephine said, "though I admit, not what I expected."

"It's just a stand-in, unfortunately. I lost the hourglass at the Conclave." She cast a miserable look at the paper in Josephine's hands. "Dad had it made from little pieces and materials he'd picked up on the way south. Sand from the shores of Par Vollen. Wood from a tree he liked as they passed through Antiva. A little gold embellishment from the melted-down remnants of the first gold coin he ever scraped together."

Josephine's face had fallen. "I'm so sorry."

Adaar shrugged one shoulder. "He wouldn't hold it against me, but...I kept it safe through so many jobs. Guess the Fade was just too much for it. Still feels weird, not wearing it."

Josephine looked to the paper again, her eyes moving from one detail to the next. "Why an hourglass?"

"My name means _time_ , in Qunlat."

"Adaar? I thought that meant cannon."

"No, my given name—Herah."

"Herah," Josephine mused. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken Adaar's given name; her heart lurched to hear it in Josephine's voice.

"Because I ran out their time under the Qun," Adaar explained. "But gave them more time, somewhere...else. Somewhere free, in their opinion. The sand ran out, but then the hourglass turned."

Josephine was smiling, widely and warmly, as though truly touched. "That's a lovely sentiment."

"Yeah," Adaar said, but her agreement felt a little hollow. She accepted the paper back from Josephine. "What does it mean when the hourglass breaks, though?"

Josephine pondered that for a moment. The wagon rocked, and Adaar listened for any indication of a disturbance, but there was only the wind, rustling past; the horses, their steps heavy; Cassandra's muttering up ahead, if she wasn't mistaken.

"Perhaps it is as your parents said," Josephine said at last. "Your time with the Valo-kas ran out, but your time elsewhere began."

"That's a nice way of looking at it."

Adaar tucked the paper away again, safe in her coat. The original sketch—the one with her dad's notes, written in Qunlat before the painstaking translation—was safe in her Skyhold loft, hidden away.

If Skyhold fell, after all, she had probably fallen with it.

"Speaking of Jana," Josephine said, "have you heard from her recently? I know that you were concerned about Duskfield."

"I got a letter from her just before we left Skyhold. Seems as if all is well there, for now."

Josephine's lips pursed in thought. "If you'd still like to check in on them, I'm sure I can find some business in the area—an excuse to make the trip."

"I would, but...when this business with the House of Repose is done, maybe. So that you're free to—well. If you still wanted to come with."

The offer hadn't been made so long ago, but it had been made without any firm plans. They'd both been low at the time, vulnerable. Maybe Josephine hadn't been serious, or had thought better of it since. But she smiled, and the strength of it creased the corners of her eyes.

"Of course. I would love to see where you grew up." She tapped a finger against her lips. "It is a little hard to imagine you tending a farm, though it sounds like a peaceful life."

"It was," Adaar sighed. "I might even go back to it someday."

Josephine cast her a surprised look. "Really?"

Adaar shrugged. "Assuming I survive all this, then...why not? Settling down never held much appeal to me before, but after the last few months, I think it would be a relief. The mercenary life would seem like a demotion after the Inquisition, and it's probably best for everyone if I fade into obscurity, anyway."

Josephine chuckled. "Well, when you put it like that. So long as you promise to visit me in Antiva during your retirement. The Montilyet vineyards are renowned, you know."

"I suppose I could crawl out of my hermitage for that," Adaar said, grinning. "Assuming this wine is as good as you say."

Josephine raised one eyebrow, as if challenging her. It was hard not to lean in again. There was so little space in this cursed wagon, and they were already too close.

"There is plenty of it to sample at Skyhold," she said. "And we have other business to handle when we return, aside from my personal affairs. A working dinner may be in order."

Well, at least there would be a pile of convoluted requests to keep Adaar's head on straight. And a table between them, for good measure. "By all means," she replied. "You have full reign over my calendar. Pick a day, and I will be there."

"Perfect," Josephine declared, like she'd won something. Adaar wished she knew what.


	3. Chapter 3

"Inquisitor!"

Adaar winced. She'd been aware of someone shadowing her all the way across the keep, up several flights of stairs, but now that shadow had Leliana's voice and seemed a great deal more threatening.

She'd been expecting this ever since the last, incredulous look Leliana had cast at her over Josephine's desk, ever since Josephine had laid out her plan and Adaar had backed it. But Leliana had bided her time. A full week, watching for a moment when no ears would overhear them.

And with an hour until Josephine was set to appear for dinner, there would be no rescue.

Adaar turned. Leliana strode toward her, no thundercloud on her face, no obvious sign of anger. She didn't carry her bow, either, but Adaar was certain she was plenty capable of hiding knives on her person. Poisonous ones, even.

Surely the needs of the Inquisition would still her hand from a killing blow. Surely.

"Nightingale," Adaar replied, and added a respectful nod for good measure, hoping to stave off the worst.

Leliana's jaw tightened. "May I have a word?"

Adaar opened the door to her quarters and gestured her through. She was not about to walk up those stairs with Leliana at her back.

To her credit, at least, Leliana did not make her. She walked ahead, and Adaar followed, shutting the door behind them.

"I was certain, at first, that your support of Josephine's plan was just a ploy," she said, stopping before the empty fireplace. "But now I see that you really do mean to nurse this foolishness along."

Adaar's temper flared. She did not like all the waiting and watching and scribbling, but she did not think Josephine's plan foolish. It was elegant, if slow. 

But Leliana would probably admit as much, if pressed. She was just worried about her friend. Adaar, who had been worrying nonstop for some time now, could sympathize.

"Yes," Adaar said. "I do. The remaining du Paraquettes have agreed, and she has already found an appropriate sponsor—"

"Her life is more important than her regard for you," Leliana cut across her, turning to face Adaar. "You fear that she will be angry with you if you decide to deal with the House of Repose more directly, but better angry than dead!"

The accusation stung. "Do you really think I didn't already try to talk her out of it? Besides, if anyone has a chance of convincing her, it's _you_ , not—"

"You do not need to talk her out of anything," Leliana snapped. "You are the Inquisitor. You have authority over us all."

"And I choose how to use it," Adaar replied. "She is carefully watched. She is not going to leave Skyhold while this goes on. No one will touch her here. We will make sure of it."

Leliana released an exasperated breath. "This could all be over in a handful of days. We do not need her permission."

"But _you_ need _mine_ ," Adaar said. Dared to say. She hated having to do it. Usually things went best when she didn't remind her advisors that the mercenary Vashoth with pointy daggers had the final say, when she could convince them and every stray noble they trotted in front of her that the ideas all came from _them_ , not her. That they acted of their own free will, not on her orders.

But if she had to do it, so be it.

Leliana's eyes narrowed. "If she dies, it is on _your_ hands."

"I won't let that happen." Adaar took a step closer, the better to loom. Leliana had to crane her neck a little to meet her eyes. "Will you? Everyone swears you know every package, every person, every _donkey_ that wanders in and out of this fortress—or is that just a pretty story?"

For a moment, Adaar thought that Leliana would continue to press; instead, she shook her head and brushed past Adaar, making for the stairs.

"It is the truth," she said. "Remember that the next time you send her some pretty bauble from your travels. My eyes are never shut."

Hard to come up with a retort for that. Leliana was already gone, down the stairs and through the door, before Adaar could come up with even half of one. Briefly, her temper sustained her—breath coming hard, muscles tensed as if to rush after Leliana—but then, legs gone watery, she collapsed to the couch.

Maybe Leliana was right. Maybe this was all much worse than Josephine thought, and Adaar was putting her life at risk. But Leliana would act on her own, if that was the case—and ask forgiveness later, rather than trouble with permission now. No, Josephine had the right of it, and Leliana was merely worried for her friend, just like Adaar.

She'd been looking forward to dinner with Josephine all day—all week, really—but some of the enthusiasm left her now. Leliana clearly saw her interest, and disapproved of it. Another tick in the column against any relationship between them: Josephine's oldest and dearest friend found her lacking. 

The flirtation was still fun. Wonderful, even. It had just been more fun, more wonderful, when she hadn't cared whether or not anything came of it.

Then again, maybe she _had_ cared. Maybe she'd thought there was a chance.

Cassandra was right. Partially, at least. She _was_ star-crossed. She just didn't want to be.

Some of Cook's people came along half an hour later to set the table. Adaar stayed out of their way. She did not put her daggers away, not with Leliana's warning still in her ears. She kept them hanging from her chair within easy reach, and if Josephine noticed them as she swept in and took her seat, she didn't comment.

"This is our most popular vintage," she said, lifting the bottle to pour wine into Adaar's glass. "If it can't convince you to leave your hypothetical hermitage, then nothing will."

Adaar laughed, amused despite the dour mood Leliana had delivered to her. "We'll see," she said, teasing. "It's an awfully long trip from the Free Marches."

Josephine gave an indignant scoff. "Antiva is neighboring! You wouldn't even need to cross water, though I suppose taking ship from Wycome might be faster than horseback."

"Ah, but I'll be just a poor farmer, unable to afford passage."

Josephine rolled her eyes. "Try the wine, please."

Adaar sipped. The taste bloomed in her mouth—heady, rich, complex. Far different from the watered-down drinks they served at the Herald's Rest. She didn't have the knowledge to describe it further.

"I suppose I will have to find a way," she sighed, setting the glass down. "It really is very good."

"I am glad that is settled," Josephine said with a smile. "Now, about these demands—my apologies, _requests_ —that piled up while we were away…"

Adaar chuckled, and Josephine smiled a little wider, unfolding the first document. They ate while they worked, Adaar trying to keep her mind on problem after problem as it was passed before her. 

But there was another problem distracting her, demanding her attention. Whoever had lived in Skyhold previously hadn't worried much about things like the inherent danger of a room made entirely of windows, and with Leliana's dire words still ringing in her ears, she found herself wishing they'd met in Josephine's office instead.

She'd hardly ever noticed the windows before. It was rare for her to spend more than a handful of minutes awake in this room. Long enough for a brief wash, no more. The inside of her tent felt more familiar to her than this place. It had been decorated very pleasantly, but she'd had no hand in it.

The point being: she slept in this room, but lightly. She was unconcerned with her own self-defense, which the daggers under her pillow could take care of.

But she had never tried to protect anyone _else_ in this room before, and it was a logistical nightmare. So many points of entry. What had the original builder had against nice, sturdy stone walls? A few arrowslits would've sufficed for the view.

"You've hardly touched your wine," Josephine said, the tone of her voice changing just enough for Adaar to take notice. "I am afraid you lied about liking it. To spare my feelings, perhaps?"

Adaar glanced at the glass—yes, still barely a sip gone—and went back to watching the windows.

"It's not that, I'd just rather keep my head clear if we’re going to get through this," she said, gesturing without looking to the piles of letters strewn across the table between them.

"Mmm-hmm." In her peripheral vision, Adaar saw Josephine’s eyes narrow. "So what do you suggest we do about Lord Baloveyer, then?"

Adaar had no idea who Lord Baloveyer was. Probably the topic of Josephine’s talk just a moment before, but Adaar, absorbed by her window observation, remembered none of it. 

"I’m sorry," she admitted. "Despite the lack of wine, my attention...wandered. Can you summarize the issue for me?"

Josephine folded her hands over the papers, raising an eyebrow at Adaar. "Assassins are not going to burst through the window if you take your eyes off of it."

"They might," Adaar grumbled, not bothering to protest this observation.

"There are soldiers stationed both in the garden and on the wall. There are even a few at the bottom of the stairs. I know you trust our people."

"You haven’t seen how keen some of them are on supplies. All an assassin has to do is wave some silverite under their noses and they’ll let him right up."

There was a look of concern in Josephine's eyes that didn’t belong there at all. Didn’t she understand that _she_ was the one at risk, and Adaar was merely her insufficient shield for the evening? 

And what would happen when even that was gone, when she had to return to her quarters and rely only on the guards for her safety? They were good, Adaar could admit that, but not as good as Adaar. These assassins, if they came, would not play fair.

"Then you'll take care of him," Josephine said, all confidence, "whether you're watching the windows or not."

"I plan to," Adaar said. "I just wish that you would sit in a nice, windowless room while this all gets sorted out."

"There is too much work to be done for me to shut myself away for weeks on end."

"Then we should get back to it." It was clear that Josephine was not going to give up this topic until Adaar relaxed her vigilance a little. Reluctantly, she shifted to sit properly in her chair, her back now to one set of windows. Theoretically, the soldiers in the garden below could deal with that entrance. She’d watch the sheer cliffside instead.

She'd have to be careful not to get distracted by watching Josephine's face, which also happened to be in that direction. Even now, she looked at Adaar, her brow still creased with concern.

"Perhaps we should take the rest of the night off," she suggested.

"Oh? I can prepare the vault for your arrival, if that’s the case."

" _No_ ," Josephine said, laughing a little. "I only meant...you have been working very hard. You look as if you could use a break. Just for an evening."

"You have a very nice way of saying I look like shit," Adaar said dryly.

Josephine lifted her chin. "I did not say that."

"Exactly."

Josephine looked pointedly at Adaar's still-full glass of wine, and with a resigned sigh, she picked it up and drank. As good as the first sip had been. _Heavy_ , maybe, was the word for it. Not the _right_ word, but _a_ word. The warmth of it settled in her stomach, loosening her muscles a little.

Well, if Josephine wanted to set work aside, who was Adaar to refuse? Trying to keep track of it all was giving her a headache, anyway.

"My calendar called this a working dinner," she said, a last token protest.

"And since I have free reign over your calendar, as you yourself said, I can strike a word or two from the record." Josephine leaned back in her chair, wine glass in hand. "The work will still be there in the morning."

"Will it ever," Adaar muttered. "Fine, then. I hope you brought more of this very good wine."

Josephine's eyes sparkled. The candlelight brought out the subtler hues in her irises: a stormy gray-blue, a dappled green. Adaar could practically hear Shokrakar's voice in her head, taunting: _Working on your poetry, Adaar?_

"A few bottles, actually," Josephine said. "Different vintages. I find that you appreciate the expensive ones less after a few glasses."

Adaar's curiosity piqued. "Define _expensive_ for me, here."

Josephine named a sum. Adaar put down her glass immediately.

"I think you should probably open one of those less expensive bottles," she said. She wished she'd set the glass further away. She was not particularly clumsy, but she imagined knocking that glass off the table, the coins that would roll away through the floorboards, lost forever. "This is wasted on me."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous—"

"No, really. Until recently, I was drinking the first watered-down swill we could find every time the Valo-kas came off a job. And it worked just fine. I don't need to guzzle the last of your family's gold."

Josephine gave her an arch look. "We are not _that_ destitute. And even if we were…" 

She reached across the table, took Adaar's hand, and molded her fingers back to the stem of the wine glass. The way that all Adaar's insides surged against her ribs at the touch was _not_ helpful. 

"You like it," Josephine said, her fingers still curled around Adaar's, holding them in place. "Yes? So it is not wasted on you." She looked up at Adaar, her smile soft, sweet. "Besides, I think you'll find that it works better than _just fine_. Perhaps it will help you relax."

Josephine released her hand, and Adaar released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The oxygen that flooded her brain left her a little lightheaded. 

"Relaxing used to be a lot easier," she said, but she took another cautious sip of the wine made of gold.

"Ah, so you used to be better at it."

Adaar shot her a dirty look. Josephine smiled innocently back, as if daring her to prove it.

"Every tavern we passed loved the Valo-kas," Adaar said. "We spent all our coin drinking all their ale, and we were nice to the barmaids." She stared into her wine and gave a dramatic, forlorn sigh, as if she longed for those simpler days.

Some part of her did, in fairness. She'd been so much clearer on where she belonged then.

"You sound like one of those gaudy stories Yvette loves," Josephine teased. " _The mercenaries were hard as iron, but a serving girl with a listening ear who was quick with the ale would learn they were soft of heart._ And other silliness."

"Just a listening ear, hmm?"

"It does seem a euphemism, doesn’t it?" Josephine said, not missing a beat, and gave Adaar a sly look. "Well? Is it?"

Adaar managed a laugh, though she nearly choked on it. Talking to Josephine wasn't like talking to one of the holier-than-thou nobles who passed through Skyhold, who'd handed a job to the Valo-kas as if trying not to brush fingers with them. Despite her family's eminent fortunes, she was still just...Josephine. Clever, sweet, kind, funny Josephine. 

If she could be so bold, then Adaar would not hold back. 

"Are you asking me if I ever bedded a serving girl?" she asked, putting on her most devilish grin. "Maybe after she listened to one of my very obviously embellished stories and bound up my most recent wounds?"

There was a flash of something on Josephine's face. Heat, maybe? Consternation? Jealousy? Oh, Adaar wished.

"You might consider listening to more of Skyhold's rumormongers," Josephine said. "There are a few people here who claim to have done as much with you."

Adaar, in the middle of a mouthful of wine, nearly spat it out. She swallowed hastily. "Excuse me?"

There was a wicked glint in Josephine’s eye now. Adaar should have known better than to trifle with her. Her humor had been honed by the Grand Game; Adaar felt a sickening swoop in her stomach at the sight of that intent look on her face, the feeling she’d come to associate with falling an inch or a foot or a mile deeper in love. 

"Only the gullible believe it, of course," Josephine continued, almost carelessly. "Or visiting nobles who like a bit of a story about our figurehead. There are enough eyes on you to confirm, without question, whether you’ve actually been involved with anyone."

"How reassuring," Adaar muttered, not particularly mollified. "I think I will continue my practice of ignoring rumors, thank you. It will be hard to look Cook in the face if I think she’s daydreaming. Six months ago she wouldn’t even make eye contact with me, and now she puts a little vase of flowers on the tray when she has meals sent up to me. Is that what that’s about?"

Josephine had pressed her hand over her mouth, not quite tight enough to contain the laughter spilling out; there was a gleam of tears in her eyes from the mirth. Adaar shook her head and took a gulp of the wine before remembering how expensive it was; at the look on her face, Josephine laughed all the harder.

The rumors weren't so far off base. If not for the circumstances, she'd have found someone to roll in the hay with by now. Let off a little steam. But even for a casual tryst, it seemed unfair to any takers if Josephine was in her head all night.

"What about you, then," she said, only a little grumpily—for effect. "This is all very base, this talk of unions in seedy taverns. I’m sure you’ve had more elaborate romances. You were in Orlais, after all, with Leliana for a friend."

Josephine’s laughter died off to chuckles; she dabbed at her eyes, careful not to smear any of the kohl that lined them. "With Leliana for a friend, I was lucky to occasionally sneak a kiss behind a tapestry. She can be very protective."

Adaar thought back to an hour before. "I had no idea."

Josephine shrugged, just the smallest motion of her shoulders. "There were overtures. None of it felt...natural. A great deal of poetry recited at length, bouquet after bouquet of flowers. It always felt like another part of the Game rather than any real feeling. I entertained a few, but only briefly. They were flings, nothing more."

"Pity," Adaar said, though she didn't mean it in the slightest.

"Pity?"

"In the same way that Yvette—and you, it seems—found some entertainment in the idea of a lowly merc with a soft side sharing a night with a kind stranger, I’ve always imagined there must be something unbearably romantic about being swept off your feet with all the trappings. Poetry, flowers, beautiful dress, glittering jewelry." She grinned, despite how close this came to highlighting all of their differences. "My parents were farmers, after all."

Josephine shook her head, an amused, somewhat fond smile on her face. "I’m sorry to disappoint you."

"And I, you."

"I don’t think you’ve quite managed that, yet." Josephine folded her arms in a way that—well, Adaar did not _stare_ , she just had good peripheral vision, and the swell of Josephine's breasts in the low neckline of her dress was very nice, indeed. She had a few freckles there, barely discernible.

"Oh?" Adaar said. She sounded passably normal, luckily.

"After all, as you are quite adept at doing, you changed the subject. You managed to thoroughly avoid confirming or denying your activities with the Valo-kas."

"It's just not that interesting."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Adaar shook her head. "There were a few people. Men, women. But none of them ever patched me up, or looked me in the eyes such that they seemed to pierce through to my soul, or anything."

"Flings," Josephine said, understanding.

"Yes, though without the poetry and flowers."

"You are better off, I promise you," Josephine said, shuddering theatrically. "The things they would come up with! One wrote an entire stanza devoted to my eyebrows. Not a skilled writer among them."

"Ah, pity the poor fools. It would be near impossible to capture your beauty with words."

Josephine laughed, dismissing it as a joke, but Adaar saw her cheeks darken, too. Her fingers tightened on her wine glass. Her eyes darted to Adaar's and away again, a little wide, a little flustered.

Yes, good grief, the flirtation was still fun. Nothing compared to how Josephine reacted to a compliment, like she'd never been paid one before.

"You _are_ ridiculous," she said.

Adaar sobered, wondering if she'd misread. "Should I stop?"

Josephine considered, her head tilted just slightly to the side. "I would miss it if you did. Even if the things you say are outrageous."

Just once, Adaar wanted Josephine to understand: it wasn't outrageous, not to her. It was true. The slight golden cast of her skin in the firelight; the sweet curve of her smile; the way she'd looked at Adaar and declared her worthy. Josephine was exceptional. Extraordinary. Capturing that in a few stanzas was not possible.

She was about to say as much, to do her best, when a knock echoed from the bottom of the stairs. "Message for you, Inquisitor!" a scout's voice called.

If she wasn't mistaken, Josephine looked a little disappointed, as if the conversation had been cut too short for her liking, too.

Once Adaar had peeled back the wax seal, though, the easy mood of the evening evaporated, and there was no getting it back. The events described in the letter were too chilling. Another settlement threatened. More lives lost.

"I'll have to set out tomorrow," she said, fingertips tucked tight against her glowing palm.

Josephine closed the gap between them again, curled her fingers around Adaar's fist. "Be careful."

Adaar looked up from the letter. "I hadn't planned to leave while this was still unresolved, but—"

"Herah. There are plenty of guards here. I will follow Leliana's instructions to the letter. You have greater concerns."

It was selfish, but Adaar wanted to retort that she didn't. That Josephine was her greatest concern. That the world would have to get in line.

But that would tip her hand. She couldn't do that, no matter how thin her resolve was wearing, all the thinner after hearing her name on Josephine's tongue, as if it was perfectly at home there.

She would just have to be quick. Fix it, and hurry back, and hope that Skyhold would hold in her absence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slight delay in this update! Please also note that this chapter has a content warning for violence. Nothing particularly graphic, but a heads-up still seems prudent.

"Hmm."

Josephine looked up from the letter held flat beside her plate. Leliana, just across the table from her, scrutinized her with narrow eyes.

"Hmm?" Josephine echoed, raising one eyebrow.

"I recognize that bauble. The Inquisitor sent it to you some time ago, didn't she?"

Josephine reached up to touch the piece of fire agate dangling from her hair, and though it would only encourage Leliana, she glanced at the empty throne at the end of the keep. Not that Adaar ever sat in that chair a second longer than absolutely necessary, but it did seem a reminder of her absence.

How keenly Josephine missed her, worse and worse every time she departed Skyhold now. There had been times these last few weeks that she'd been convinced she'd heard Adaar's voice in the distance, perhaps just striding into the keep, her smile weary from the road. But every time, moments and then hours passed, and she did not appear at Josephine's desk; she did not appear in the keep for dinner; she had not returned.

"She did," Josephine said, looking back to the letter, though its significance was all a jumble now.

Leliana sighed—a tiny sound, just loud enough for Josephine to hear over the low murmur of the keep—and leaned forward. "I am surprised something new has not arrived from this excursion."

There _had_ been something new. Josephine had just taken precautions. The pretty piece of sea glass had arrived in a letter, which Leliana knew about; it had been addressed to all Adaar's advisors, after all. Josephine had simply taken the liberty of opening it first, away from other prying eyes, to avoid questions at the war table.

Not that she expected trinkets. Just...hoped, given Adaar's past habits. Even more delightful this time had been the small additional scrap of paper, rolled into the larger letter, addressed just to her.

"I'm sure she has more serious matters to attend to," Josephine said.

"Josephine…"

"Leliana," she returned. "I have not changed my mind about this."

"You still believe she has no feelings for you." Leliana's brow furrowed with disbelief.

"Certainly I think she has _some_ feeling for me," Josephine corrected. "I believe we are good friends, beyond our official roles. She has said as much."

In truth, though, she had begun to wonder if maybe there was more to it. She couldn't say as much to Leliana; it would only goad her into more speculation. But she had seen Adaar look at her, now and then, and sometimes that look made her question if...maybe. Maybe Adaar missed her as much as she missed Adaar, maybe in the same way, maybe…

"Then what are all _these_ for?" Leliana said, and reached across the table to flick the fire agate with one finger.

"You and I exchange gifts." Josephine stilled the swaying chain. "Do you have some unrevealed romantic interest in me?"

"On holidays," Leliana said, with a roll of her eyes. "And nothing so…" She pursed her lips, thinking. " _Token_ ish."

"If she has such feelings, why hasn't she said as much?" Josephine replied dismissively, even as her heart gave a sad little pang.

She'd thought, maybe, that they were working up to such a conversation during their last meal together. Adaar had a way of saying things as if she was not serious, or exaggerating, but she had looked at Josephine so earnestly as she paid her that last compliment. Or was Josephine only seeing what she wanted to see, a reflection of her own feelings and hopes rather than the truth?

It didn't matter, in the end. They had been interrupted, any potential conversation cut short. And Josephine had been left more confused than ever.

"Perhaps she is not sure of _your_ feelings, and fears to act when they might be unwanted," Leliana said. "It would make things very awkward if you did not feel the same."

"Yes, it would," Josephine said pointedly.

Leliana sat back, frustration evident in the way she picked up her goblet. "I think it is obvious in the way that she has handled the House of Repose that there is something there."

"Your opinion has been noted, as always."

Leliana sighed again. "I only want you to think about it, Josie. If she _does_ say something...what would your answer be? What would you do?"

This, finally, gave her pause. "Do you think it's a bad idea?"

Leliana sipped from her goblet, as if considering, though Josephine was sure that her mind had already been made up. "No worse than many ideas that have been pursued lately."

"A resounding endorsement," Josephine said dryly.

Finally, Leliana smiled. "If you care for her, and she cares for you...then I would be glad that you had found some happiness, especially in the midst of all this. I just don't want you to be caught off guard. Or hurt."

Leliana was too much like an older sister, sometimes. "I _am_ happy," Josephine protested. "As happy as one can be when the world is coming apart at the seams, at least."

"I think you could be happier. That is all."

She did not want to give Leliana any further opportunity to dig at this. Not right now. She gathered up her letters and stood, leaving her picked-over dinner plate. "I appreciate your concern, but we also have more serious matters to attend than my love life. We've already given it too much time."

Leliana's eyes danced. "I disagree. But, fine. I am sure you have things to set in order before you leave for Val Royeaux." At Josephine's questioning look, she added, "The Inquisitor is still expected tomorrow. You might set out the day after, I hope, and end this business before anything unpleasant happens."

"If Minister Bellise is amenable," Josephine agreed, and took her leave, retreating to the quiet and safety of her office. She nodded a hello to the guard stationed outside as she passed. 

But even after the door was shut, even when she had settled behind her desk and sat a moment listening to the silence, the questions raised by Leliana's poking and prodding remained, distracting her.

She loosed the clasp on her belt pouch and tipped the piece of sea glass into her hand. In the firelight, the shades of blue and green changed, acquiring a new depth. She kept it in her hand as she searched out Adaar's letter, unrolling it with care to preserve the worn paper, and read it over again.

_Lady Josephine—_

_Please excuse me for sending you another useless bauble. As you know, I can't help but pick up whatever shiny thing I stumble across. Since you have indulged me so far, I will intrude on your good graces a little while longer. This reminded me a bit of your eyes, though it still falls significantly short._

_I hope that you are keeping safe. I should be able to return to Skyhold soon, but until then, do not stand too close to any windows._

_Yours,_

_Adaar_

She wondered—allowed herself to wonder, for the first time since that conversation in the wagon weeks ago—if this was how Adaar's father had courted her mother, long ago. If Leliana was right, and these were more than casual, flirtatious overtures.

It was not poetry and flowers, but these trinkets, these brief compliments spoken from smiling lips or written in a deliberate hand, had a far greater effect on her than any sonnet ever had.

She unearthed another piece of parchment from her desk. The copy had already been sent off to Val Royeaux with precise instructions; the commission would be nearly complete by now. It would be ready by the time they arrived in the city. Whether Adaar was successful in petitioning Minister Bellise to ratify the papers that would make the Du Paraquettes nobles or not, she had gone to a great deal of trouble to help Josephine overturn this contract. She deserved thanks. 

And, if Josephine had not overstepped with this gift, perhaps they would return to that conversation that she half-hoped, half-feared to have.

She gathered herself and set personal matters aside, though she kept the sea glass in hand as she returned to her work. As the night wore on, she sorted through more of the day's letters: more information, more requests, more demands for help. She organized, took notes, put down her initial thoughts and suggestions, strategized.

It was later, much later, when she heard the scuffle outside her door. She mistook it for the scratch of the wind against Skyhold's walls, at first. Only when the scuffling persisted, contrary to the sound of the wind itself, did she realize that something had gone awry. Something _thumped_ in the hallway, barely audible, muffled, maybe inconspicuous, but—

 _But_.

She scrambled beneath her desk, pulling her skirts in so that they were well-hidden. Her heart swelled in her throat, pounding. Her fingers clenched around something; in the remaining light from the fireplace, she looked down to see the sharp length of a letter opener clutched in her right hand. She'd grabbed it by reflex, the closest thing resembling a weapon, and now she crouched like an animal reduced to base instinct.

Foolish. She exhaled, tucked the letter opener into her sash so that she could use it if necessary—only if necessary—and listened for the door to open, the sea glass still held tight in the palm of her left hand

With a creak, it swung wide. No knock. That boded ill, she thought, but she hoped it was just a messenger who hadn't learned how to properly deliver reports.

A soft footstep, and then a second. "Come, Ambassador," a voice said. "This is beneath both of us. There is one hiding place in this room, and I did not hear you flee to the war table."

She was not light of foot, like Leliana, like Adaar. They would know that.

She took a steadying breath and straightened up with all the dignity she could muster, eyes searching for a drawn blade. She left the letter opener in her sash. In truth, she had only ever wielded a single weapon with any mastery: words. She would just have to hope that she had practiced enough to survive this battle.

The man standing just inside her office, in front of a newly closed door, was utterly anonymous. Barely her height, and slight of build, his face concealed by a mask. He had dressed very like one of their scouts—perhaps how he had penetrated so deep into Skyhold. Surely he had not donned the mask until his route to her was clear.

"You have been busy," he commented. No weapons in his hands, no blood on his fingers. The contract was only for her; perhaps her guard was safe, just knocked out. "Moving pieces here and there, begging favors; we are impressed."

"Thank you," she said politely. "It has been an undertaking, but it is nearly complete." A pointed reminder of the brief respite she had been offered, more than a month ago. She had made progress; perhaps this was only yet another warning—

"I fear there has been a setback," he said, nearly apologetically.

Her stomach fluttered. "A setback?"

"Minister Bellise." He tutted. "A nut that is too hard to crack, even for you."

She would not beg for more time. Negotiate, yes, but not beg. She lifted her chin. "I believe you underestimate me."

"You? No, no, of course not. But the Inquisitor is the one who must make your case to the Minister, yes? Her Worship is a dangerous foe, but a petition like this requires a sharp tongue, not a blade." She thought she glimpsed a smile in his eyes, even through the holes of the mask. "Or six, even."

As close as the House of Repose had been watching her, they must not have been watching Adaar at all. If they had _looked_ , if they had _seen_ , they would have known how convincing she could be. How relentless.

"She is perfectly capable of negotiating on my behalf," Josephine said firmly. "I trust her completely."

"It is no longer your trust that matters, my lady."

His hand was in motion, flicking a knife from his sleeve, into his palm, into the air; instinctively, she threw herself aside, but this had clearly been his intention. Now she was on the floor, and he was standing over her, fast, so fast, another glinting knife in his hand, plunging down.

She grabbed at his arm, holding it at bay with all of her strength. The sea glass fell from her hand. She was not a fighter. She had turned away from that path long, long ago, and even now she would not have changed it. But she was strong enough to try to hold him off, to fight for her life. If it had been Adaar in her place, one of those clever hidden knives would have already found the gap between this man's ribs.

But Josephine had lost this battle. Words had bought her a little time, but in the end, they had failed. The knife inched closer even as she tried to push it away. She thought of Adaar, Adaar's liquid dark eyes, her quick and easy smile. If only there had been more time, if only— 

The assassin gasped. His body went limp, his arm no longer resisting as she shoved it away. He collapsed in a heap beside her, facedown. A blade came free from his back as he fell.

Adaar stood over her, a dripping-blood dagger in her hand, as if summoned by what should have been Josephine's final thoughts. There was a terrible look on Adaar's face, one very hard to put a name to.

"I'm all right," Josephine said, hastening to reassure, though her voice shook. Awkwardly, she pushed herself up to sit.

Adaar reached down to her with the hand not holding the dagger, and Josephine took it, allowing Adaar to heave her to her feet. She swayed a little once she was there, unsteady. Adaar dropped the bloody dagger—it clattered, loudly, on the stone—and folded her arms around Josephine, turning her face to press into Josephine's hair. Josephine didn't think, didn't wonder, only wrapped her shaking arms around Adaar's neck and held on tight.

"Are you sure," Adaar whispered; Josephine had never heard her voice like that, so afraid, so tremulous. "He didn't—"

Josephine shook her head. "You came in time." A laugh rattled out of her. The shock beginning, probably. 

Adaar had stooped to embrace Josephine, but now she straightened, lifting Josephine's feet off the floor as though she weighed nothing at all. She carried Josephine away from the body, toward the fire; Josephine felt its warmth at her back, driving out the chill that had crawled up her spine.

Adaar set her down at the hearth and pulled back, hands curled around Josephine's shoulders. The touch was nice, grounding, and Josephine reached up to return it, to steady herself on Adaar's arms.

"You weren't due to arrive until tomorrow," she said.

"I went ahead of the others." Adaar sounded a little steadier, though her eyes searched Josephine's face as if expecting to find some mortal wound there. "I couldn't sleep another night out there, not knowing whether you were safe."

Despite the fear of the last few moments, something in her stomach curled and clenched to know that Adaar had thought of her, had worried for her.

"I'm here," Josephine managed, though it seemed a paltry thing to offer. "I'm safe."

Adaar cupped her hands around Josephine's face and gazed down at her, her dark eyes bleak. "If anything had happened to you…" 

Her voice broke, and Josephine remembered her daydreams of a few hours before. Remembered the trinkets that Adaar sent her from the road, and the minutes and hours of conversation stolen between their respective duties, and the looks. The looks that she sometimes saw and told herself she was imagining.

She was not imagining _this_ look. Adaar looked at her like something precious that had nearly been lost forever, and Josephine was still distracted by that, by the fierce intensity in Adaar's dark eyes, when Adaar bent her head and kissed her.

She did not have to think about her reaction. She did not have to think about anything. She only _felt_ : felt the passion in the way Adaar's mouth moved against hers, felt the blood in her veins set afire in the wake of Adaar's hand smoothing down her spine, felt Adaar's shocked intake of breath when Josephine pressed closer, pressed to her. 

She'd never imagined it could feel like this. Like her body was sparkling, brimming, overflowing, all from Adaar's lips on hers, from Adaar's arms holding her. Those brief courtships in Val Royeaux felt all the duller by comparison. No kiss stolen behind a tapestry had ever been like _this_ kiss, so desperate, and fierce, and breathless with want. Adaar touched her cheek, tilted her head, parted Josephine's lips with the lightest touch of her tongue; Josephine clung to Adaar's neck like she might drown otherwise, fingers tangled in the length of Adaar's braid—

But Adaar stilled and pulled away, and shook her head at Josephine's noise of protest. "Wait," she breathed, looking toward the door.

There were footsteps in the corridor, Josephine realized, picking up speed. A voice shouted, "Guard down!"

Adaar let her go, reaching up to draw her remaining dagger. She pulled a knife from the folds of her armor and palmed the hilt in her left hand. "Stay behind me," she said. Josephine did not argue, did not have the breath in her _to_ argue; she retreated behind Adaar, head still reeling.

A scout burst into the room. Josephine recognized him; he had been recruited while the Inquisition was still in Haven. Adaar clearly knew him, too, because she lowered her blades, just a fraction. His eyes darted to the body and widened.

"Get Leliana," she said, the waver gone from her voice; now it was very nearly a growl. " _Now._ "

The scout ran right back out. Adaar let her arms fall to her sides, but she did not relax. She had been liquid in Josephine's arms just a moment ago, but now every muscle was tense again.

Tentatively, Josephine reached up to touch Adaar's shoulder. It was rigid beneath her hand.

"I doubt there will be more," she said, trying to offer some reassurance. "At least tonight."

"And once they know that this one failed?" Adaar nodded to the body.

"Yes," Josephine said reluctantly. "Then there will be more."

Adaar turned enough to face her, but still positioned so that she could watch the door. "We had an agreement."

"I know we did, but we're so close." In the right circumstances, she was not above begging. This qualified. "The Minister will be at a party in Val Royeaux. If we leave tomorrow—if you can just convince her—"

"How can I possibly allow that?" Adaar asked, but she didn't sound angry. Despite how taut she was drawn, her face contorted with misery. "How can I live with myself if I allow it? Leliana told me that your blood would be on my hands if this went south, and if I had been a moment later, she'd have been right." Adaar stepped back, putting space between them. Josephine's hand fell away, pointlessly, to her side. "Better to have you angry with me than dead."

"Leliana said…" Oh, that woman. Josephine would have words with her later. _Stern_ words. "You know that isn't true. This was my choice. My decision."

"That will help me sleep so much easier if I'm too late next time," Adaar said bitterly.

"It is only a little while longer—"

"I've waited weeks. Before, I just had my guilt. Just worry about what _might_ happen. Now I have evidence." Adaar pointed one dagger at the body. "If they can get into Skyhold, they can certainly attack you as we travel."

"We will send plenty of protection with you," a voice said from the door.

Leliana stood there, looking down at the body of the guard; a few others crowded behind her, one kneeling. "Alive," he announced, taking his fingers from the fallen guard's throat. "Just knocked out."

"Take her to the infirmary," Leliana said.

"I'm sorry," Adaar interrupted. Josephine recognized her temper, usually so slow to start, was perilously close to boiling over. "Maybe I got knocked out, too. What's this about protection?"

"It is as far to travel, either way," Leliana said, stepping into Josephine's office. Two guards took up positions outside the door. The rest hurried away. "Sneak in to destroy the contract, or speak to Minister Bellise—we no longer have the advantage of time with one or the other. We may as well do this Josie's way."

"I can't believe this," Adaar said, voice rising with disbelief. "An assassin slipped into Skyhold on your watch, but _now_ you're willing to carry on with this? After everything you said to me?"

"We can only go forward, not back," Leliana said, as collected and unruffled as ever, and looked to Josephine. "You should leave at first light. As early as possible. I will send some of my people with you, in case these talks with Minister Bellise do not go as expected." She turned her gaze on Adaar again. "You will be able to deal with the House of Repose, if necessary."

For once, Adaar looked at a loss for words; her mouth opened and closed, as if she couldn't give voice to her anger.

"I can still do this," Josephine said, one last plea. "I swear to you, it will be over soon, and you can rest easy."

It was the wrong thing to say. Adaar's face shuttered; the anger went out of her, but so too did everything else. For the first time, Josephine noticed the hollows under her eyes, the untidiness of her braid, the film of dust on her armor. She looked a step from falling down, and like Josephine's words might have been enough to push her.

"I see that I am now the one outnumbered." It wasn't anger that rode her quiet voice; it was hurt, confusion, fear.

"Herah," Josephine began, but Adaar was already moving toward the door.

"First light," she said, and with a last, unreadable look back at Josephine, she vanished into the keep.

For a moment, the room rang with the silence of her departure. Josephine's pulse was uneven, her fingers clenched tight into her palms. She could not look at Leliana, not with so much confusion and guilt churning inside her; she looked at the body instead, and saw something glimmering in the firelight beside it.

She went to scoop up the precious sea glass, tucking it safely away in her belt pouch.

"She will forgive you," Leliana said. Her voice sounded strangely far away. The shock, again, now that there was none of Adaar's warmth to hold it at bay.

Josephine did not think it would be that easy.


	5. Chapter 5

Usually, Adaar liked nothing better than being on the road. Clear nights like these were best of all. It was easy to pick out constellations she knew, stars she'd once navigated by on her own, crisp against the velvet map of the heavens. She'd lain on a thin bedroll staring up at that sky more nights than she could count, and when she'd closed her eyes, she'd slept peacefully.

The view afforded her very little peace just now.

Four more days to Val Royeaux. Six more until this party that Adaar was supposed to appear at. She'd made up her mind as she left Josephine's office, though. She hadn't promised anything. Leliana had sent along the tools and information Adaar would need to deal with the House of Repose. Damn the woman, but she had done Adaar that small favor. 

Her people answered to the Inquisitor, not the Ambassador. When they arrived in Val Royeaux, she would do what needed to be done. No more games.

Josephine would be angry, but the damage to their friendship had already been done. What did one more blow matter? 

Best not to think about that. To _hope_ , as was her habit, that Josephine had kissed her back and meant it. That it hadn't just been relief, or gratitude, or the heat of the moment, or… 

Adaar would send her back to Skyhold with Leliana's people when it was all over, but she would not be escorting them. The additional protection Adaar and her companions offered would no longer be required. They could ride far faster than a handful of carts. They would go south, to the Emerald Graves, and Adaar would get back to doing what she did best.

She did not plan to go back to Skyhold for a long, long time.

She shifted a little in the open bed of the cart, easing her legs out of one position and into another. Wouldn't do to get too cramped if someone crept up on them in the dead of night. She needed to be quick. Quicker than she'd ever been. She blinked her bleary eyes and surveyed the lonesome wilderness around their meager campsite again, searching for anything that didn't belong.

Behind her, canvas rustled. She turned her head to note it, squinting through the dim starlight. Paranoia prickled at her, insisting that an assassin had slipped by both her and the four others on watch, but the part of her still capable of logic expected to see one of their own party leaving their tent.

She just didn't expect it to be Josephine.

Adaar looked away, back to watching the road and sparse woods behind. She briefly considered the merits of lying down flat in the cart, concealing herself from view entirely, but that was both too childish and too dangerous. She knew how likely she was to fall asleep, even on these hard boards, if she arranged herself horizontally.

So she listened, with pricked ears, to Josephine's footsteps. She hoped they would circle away, paired with whatever guard had the unfortunate task of protecting people while they pissed, but instead, they drew closer.

Shit.

They hadn't spoken much since leaving Skyhold. She'd avoided Josephine, staying close enough to watch her back but far enough away to ward off conversation. Josephine seemed to have picked up on this, accepted it; she hadn't said anything beyond a simple greeting this morning.

But they'd also been surrounded by others: scouts, guards, Adaar's companions. Perhaps she'd just been waiting for the right moment, when they'd be overheard by the fewest possible ears.

The right moment for _what_ , Adaar had no idea. Another plea for Adaar to understand? An apology for being so cursed stubborn about this? A reprimand for kissing her? An entreaty to do it again?

Josephine paused when she drew alongside the back of the cart, just within Adaar's peripheral vision. "Inquisitor," she said softly.

Adaar watched the woods. "Ambassador."

The cart dipped a little with Josephine's weight. For a moment, they sat in silence, two feet of space between them. Adaar saw Josephine's head tip back, taking in the view of the heavens, but only out of the corner of her eye. She didn't think knowing the way starlight looked on that face would make this any easier.

"I brought you something," Josephine said at last, and Adaar realized she held a small wooden box. She set it down on the cart between them and opened the lid. "If you're not going to sleep, you'll need your strength."

Adaar glanced down at the box. A pile of little round cookies nestled on a linen napkin inside it, some of their edges crumbling.

Well, maybe she could rule out a reprimand, at least. That was...something.

"I don't know that sweets are the best choice for a long watch," she said, but she took one, anyway. "I don't recognize these."

"Polvorones. My favorites. My father's, too. He sends me quite a few of them, for fear that I'll get too homesick, the way he's always done. I usually hide them away for myself, but…" She clasped her hands in her lap. "I thought they might be an adequate peace offering. Or the beginning of one, anyway."

Adaar turned her attention back to the road as she took a bite of the cookie. It crumbled in her mouth, on her hands, sweet with a trace of almonds. She swallowed, took a sip from her water skin to wash the rest of the crumbles down as she considered.

It was abominably hard to tell this woman _No_ , which was why she'd avoided situations where she'd have to do it at all costs.

"Danaya," she said, raising her voice. 

Josephine's head turned toward her, but she didn't interrupt. Quick footsteps approached. 

"Yes, Your Worship?" the guard said.

"Watch the rear. I am being distracted."

"Yes, Your Worship," Danaya agreed, and wisely moved a solid thirty feet down the road to take her post without further comment. Good woman. Didn't make a single face whatsoever.

"I'm listening," Adaar said to Josephine.

She heard Josephine's relieved breath. She unfolded a napkin over her lap, and her elegant fingers dipped into the box to pick out one of the polvorones for herself. "I've been thinking, these last few days. I realized how poorly I've behaved. We had an agreement. If you still want to deal with the House of Repose directly…I am a woman of my word. I won't argue further."

Adaar blinked. The possibility of an apology had occurred to her, and not even as a long shot; Josephine was mindful of other people's feelings. She'd certainly noticed how...off...Adaar was. Adaar was not that adept at concealing it.

But this? She hadn't expected this.

"Okay," she said slowly, testing. "That does make things a little easier, since I planned to do just that when we arrived in Val Royeaux."

Surprise—distress—flitted over Josephine's face, but it quickly smoothed. "That is fair."

"I would have told you," Adaar said, compelled to defend herself, "but frankly, I don't hold up very well to your silver tongue. Best not to risk it."

Josephine chuckled, a little sadly. "No, I understand. I just have one request."

"For my sake, please make it a reasonable one."

"Even when you have every right to be angry with me, you are amusing," she said, but pushed on before Adaar could reply. "I would like to explain why I've been so opposed to your plan, to Leliana's plan. Prove to you that I'm not being mulish, or stupid, or naïve, or..."

"I don't think you're any of those things." Adaar picked up another cookie. She'd finished the first one without noticing. She did tend to eat her nerves. "Well, maybe a little stubborn. Usually that's a good quality. But if you'd like to tell me, go ahead."

Josephine dipped her head. "I used to be a bard, you see."

She paused there as if deliberating, and Adaar tried to imagine it. She was a deft negotiator, but Adaar had a hard time picturing her in such a place at court just now, with the pretty ocean-blue shawl held around her shoulders to ward off the chill, her long dark hair woven into a loose braid over her shoulder. Rumpled by sleep, or maybe a lack of it. She belonged among her books and her missives, her pen and her ink. Hard to imagine her hiding daggers in her clothes instead.

She'd had a letter opener in her sash that night. Adaar pushed the thought of it, its inadequacy, as far away as it would go.

"What, like Leliana?" she asked. "With the singing, and the story-telling, and…"

"The spying," Josephine finished. "Yes. I was young, attending university in Val Royeaux. It sounded so...romantic, so exciting. Trysts, secrets, fascinating people. Very different from my responsibilities to my family."

"Ah," Adaar said. "So even you can get tired of paperwork sometimes."

"Especially at that age." Josephine sighed, as if the memory embarrassed her. "So I put on a mask, told myself that my siblings would get along without me, and practiced the Game in as thrilling a way as I could."

"I suppose I can imagine that. Well," she amended, "parts of it, anyway."

Josephine nodded. "Parts of it, yes. The charming conversation, that I was good at. I had some skill with a harp, though my singing has never been as good as Leliana's."

Adaar made a mental note to find a harp at the first opportunity, then remembered herself and crossed it out again immediately. Her plans after Val Royeaux had not changed. She would maintain the distance between them. It was for the best.

The words would ring true someday, she was sure. 

"And the other parts?" she said. "How did that end?"

Josephine drew her shawl a little more tightly around herself. "Very poorly. You know that I am not a fighter. I had an aversion to violence, even then. But I convinced myself that I needed to play the part, that I could learn, that I would adjust to it. I practiced."

"You got hurt," Adaar guessed when Josephine hesitated.

"If only." She straightened up as if steeling herself. "During a particular intrigue, another bard was sent to kill my patron. We...fought, if you could call it that. It did not feel very much like the epic duels we sang about. I was terrified. I think that he was, too. We were at the top of a steep flight of stairs. He drew a knife, and I pushed him away from me…you can imagine the result."

Adaar could see the shame on her face. The guilt, even after all these years.

Adaar remembered the first person she had killed, too. The way she'd thrown up on her knees in the dirt after. It took a lot of practice to stop doing that part. Demons were easier. Hell, Red Templars were easier. They weren't really people anymore.

"It was self-defense," she said, trying to be gentle. "He would have killed you."

"But it was such a waste!" Adaar had rarely seen Josephine so animated: the words burst out of her, not loud, mindful of the guards, but sharp. Devastated. Her eyes gleamed, and Adaar fought the impulse to touch her, to comfort her. "And when I took off his mask, I _knew_ him. We'd attended parties together. If I'd stopped to reason, if I'd used my voice instead of scuffling like a common thug…"

It was just another blow to an old wound. Adaar weathered it. She knew Josephine didn't mean it like that, would never be that cruel, but Adaar knew the truth about herself, too. Knew, and accepted it.

Cassandra kept saying that she was the person they'd needed, exactly when they'd needed it. Stood to reason that sometimes the world needed a common thug.

"I will always wonder who he would have turned out to be," Josephine said. "That is why."

Adaar returned to the problem at hand. "These aren't boys on their first run, Josephine. They're part of a _guild_ of assassins—"

"I know that. I know." She shook her head, impatient. "It is not _their_ lives that most concern me, though I do think their deaths would be pointless. For what? For an old grudge so easily forgotten that the surviving descendents would sweep it away for a favor of status?" She scoffed. "They're bound by that old agreement, but no one else feels the same."

There was truth enough in that. Adaar had seen some of Josephine's exchanges with the Du Paraquettes. Hard to imagine that a hundred years ago, these families had been at each others' throats. They were just strangers now. 

"What most concerns you, then?" she said.

Josephine looked up at her. Her fingers had pulled one of the cookies apart in her lap; it was a pile of crumbs now. "The lives of _our_ people. Any of them could get hurt, could die, trying to destroy this contract. _You_ could die."

Adaar considered her for a long moment. "You see our impasse, then," she said at last. "You are not willing to send me into mortal danger, and I am not willing to let you stay in the same."

"Yes." There was disappointment, but understanding, in Josephine's eyes. "I do see. And you have honored my request, above and beyond our agreement, so you can do what you see fit with a clear conscience. I won't protest."

Damn her. Even as she released Adaar, she bound her. Adaar wondered if she'd just played the Game for so long that she couldn't _stop_ playing it, that she did it even subconsciously. That she knew, instinctively, that where pleading or begging wouldn't change Adaar's mind, _this_ would.

And Adaar admired Josephine's idealism. Always had. Maybe she was cutthroat when it came to maneuvering alliances, but it was in metaphor only; she did her best to mitigate harm. She advocated for opportunity, for a future, not an ending.

Adaar wanted the world to work that way.

"This is exactly why I haven't talked to you in four days," Adaar muttered. "I knew you would talk me out of it." She took another cookie to console herself and stuffed it whole in her mouth. Maybe the crumbs would choke her, put her out of her misery.

"I mean it," Josephine pressed. "Do what you think—"

"—is best," Adaar finished. "Yeah. Wish I knew for sure what that was." She dusted her hands free of crumbs. "If this minister so much as looks at me funny—which is very likely, given the manners these kinds of people usually have—I'm storming the House of Repose that very hour."

Josephine reached across the space between them to touch her hand. "Thank you."

Adaar only nodded. Hard to do anything else as she looked at those soft fingertips grazing the backs of her knuckles, thinking inevitably of the last time they'd touched.

Josephine withdrew, and Adaar hoped that she would get up and leave; that she had gotten what she wanted, and there would be no need to discuss anything else.

"There is one other matter," Josephine said, her words more hesitant by far now.

Adaar didn't dare look at her face. She listened, waited, for the guillotine to drop.

"You kissed me," Josephine said, and Adaar closed her eyes against it. "After…"

Adaar would never forget it. Never. The relief she'd felt all the way down to her weary bones when she arrived outside Josephine's door to hear voices, to hear _her_ voice, to realize that she was safe, alive—only for that relief to twist, become a terror so stark she'd never felt its like—

"I only…please understand, I don't want to assume that you harbor any tender feelings for me, I just…" Josephine let out a frustrated breath. "Listen to me stutter. I only want to understand what you meant by it."

Adaar opened her mouth before she even knew what she planned to say; she shut it again. Josephine waited, patient, not pushing.

Adaar could lie. Wave it off. Make the same excuses she'd imagined Josephine would make. Things would be awkward, probably. After all this, it was hard to imagine that they'd ever be as close as they had once been.

But Josephine deserved better than that. She'd gone out of her way to apologize, to explain. Now she asked to understand, to be given the same courtesy in return. 

It would still be awkward, but maybe they'd get past it, someday. She could hope. It had carried her this far.

"I care about you," she said. She sounded steady enough. "Very much." She paused, cleared her throat. "Thought it was sort of obvious."

Josephine didn't reply. The silence—a few seconds that felt like years—pressed down on Adaar, threatening to crush her. She had to look, had to see…

Josephine stared at her, eyes wide, lips slightly parted. She looked an awful lot like she had after Adaar had kissed her.

Breathlessly, she said, "I thought...I thought it was possible, but…"

"I know. I didn't send an eyebrow poem." She fell back on bad humor like it was some kind of defense, like it wouldn't just make things worse. "Just a bunch of stupid trinkets. Awfully unclear of me. Look, I'm sorry if I made you uncomf—"

She had not known that Josephine could move so quickly; she'd pushed the box of cookies out of the way, thrown herself against Adaar's side, and pulled Adaar's head down to kiss her before Adaar knew what was happening.

She'd tried not to remember. In those moments before the few hours of sleep she'd scraped for herself, she'd tried not to think about how it had felt. Josephine clinging to her, safe and warm and alive; Josephine pressing close to her, matching Adaar's desperation with her own fervor; Josephine's soft, sweet lips yielding beneath hers.

She was just as demanding as she'd been that night. Adaar had never expected, never imagined that—when she'd dared to imagine, anyway. That Josephine had a fire burning inside her to match Adaar's torch, and when their lips met, they knew one another's heat.

Josephine's hands framed Adaar's face, held her in place. Without Adaar's explicit say-so, her arms had wrapped around Josephine. She drank in the blissful noise of delight that came from Josephine's lips, didn't bother to catch the shawl as it fell and fluttered to the cart. Josephine touched her like she was something beloved, and she melted beneath the worship of those fingers, fell to pieces beneath the care of this deepening kiss, sweet with that lingering taste of the polvorones. Another few seconds of those soft lips moving with hers and she'd be tumbling Josephine down into the bed of the cart, and she doubted very much that Josephine would protest—

One of the guards called to another. Despite the heat, despite Josephine's body against hers, she heard it. It was a proprietary remark; there was no danger. But it felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over Adaar's head.

She tugged away, just enough to break the kiss, letting the cold night air come between them. "Wait."

Josephine made an impatient noise, following. "There are no assassins out—"

"It's not that."

Josephine's eyes searched her face. They looked a little glassy with want, with lust, with starlight.

It was a very good look on her, but it wasn't helping Adaar keep her head straight.

"Then what?" she asked. Her thumb ran over Adaar's cheek, once, twice.

She would not get through this if Josephine kept touching her, but she had to tell herself to let go three times before she actually took her arms from around Josephine. Josephine settled back to the cart, waiting, brow knit with confusion.

"This isn't a good idea," Adaar said.

Josephine leaned a little away, clearly stung. "Why not?"

Adaar glanced down the road, toward the nearest guard. Danaya's back was to them, but she wasn't far enough away, not nearly.

"People talk," she said. "As you've told me yourself. Even a short entanglement—"

" _Short entanglement_?" Josephine repeated, a thread of anger weaving through the hurt. "I am not interested in a fling, as you well—"

"Let me finish. Please."

Maybe something on Adaar's face convinced her; she took a breath and gestured, as if to say _go ahead_.

"This whole deal is going to restore your family's status," Adaar said. "Right?"

If Josephine found the change in subject strange, she didn't comment on it. "It will take more work than that, but—yes, this is the necessary beginning."

"How do you think that status would dip if everyone knew you were involved with me? What trade opportunities would you lose? Who would exclude your siblings from parties, your parents from plans?"

Josephine didn't answer right away. She thought about it, giving it a moment, turning it over, before she answered. "No one who has not already excluded us," she said. "No opportunities I have not already lost."

"Are you sure of that?"

"No one can ever be absolutely certain of anything," Josephine said evenly. "But I do not care."

"I know that isn't true. You've worked so hard to make this happen. Not just these last few months—years and years of work. What if just…being with me…would reverse all of that?"

Josephine slid off the cart and turned to face Adaar. Silently, Adaar offered out her shawl, and she took it, but let it hang loose from her hand.

"For my family, yes, I have worked," Josephine said. "So that they might get along without me, one day, if the worst were to happen. But I set all my trappings aside to join the Inquisition, knowing that I might well be cast as a heretic with the rest of you." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, as if this didn't trouble her at all. "It does not appear that this is our trajectory any longer. I've turned a deaf ear to many slights, but there are fewer of them every week."

"You'll have to turn a deaf ear to many more," Adaar said. She had to make Josephine understand. "Supporting me politically is very different from declaring a romantic relationship with a common thug."

Josephine looked at her, silent, inscrutable, and Adaar almost squirmed under the weight of that gaze. It felt like Josephine saw a great deal. Things Adaar didn't want her to see, things she didn't intend to show her.

"You know that I don't see you that way," Josephine said.

"But other people do," Adaar argued. "Other people _will_ —"

"Other people think many silly things," Josephine cut across her.

"Tell me if this is silly, then. When this is all over, if I'm still standing when the dust clears, I will have a very simple life left to me. A little land, a little house. You have connections, responsibilities, that won't fit in the space I have to offer. Would you give all that up to sink to my level?"

Josephine let out a low breath. "I see."

The way she was looking at Adaar, Adaar very much doubted it. "See what?"

"You are afraid that I am going to hurt you."

Adaar spluttered. "That's not what I—"

"You think that when this is over, you will not be special anymore, and I will not want you anymore." Josephine stepped forward, just enough to wrap the shawl around Adaar's shoulders. "You're wrong."

She patted the fabric into place, as if to protect Adaar from the chill. Every touch of her hand weakened a little more of Adaar's resolve.

"I am not going to change my mind," Josephine said. "When you have gotten over your reservations—"

" _My_ reservations? You're the one who should have—"

"I will be here, Herah," Josephine said, relentless. "And I will still want the same thing. Lest you accuse me of manipulating you with my silver tongue, I will leave you to think."

Adaar had lost all language, all ability to protest. Josephine took one more polvorone from the box, but left the rest with a last pointed look at Adaar.

She was not _afraid_.

...Was she?


	6. Chapter 6

"My company is not going to help you get out that door without Adaar, Lady Montilyet."

Josephine sagged back against Cassandra's door. It took a great deal of self-control to keep a scowl from her face. Cassandra hadn't even looked up from her book; in fact, her eyes were still scanning the page, the slightest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, as if whatever she was reading amused her.

"Surely your protection is equal to hers," Josephine tried, though she had a sinking feeling that this was already a lost cause. "Superior, some would argue."

Cassandra did shut the book now, one finger between the pages to hold her place. She looked up at Josephine with slightly narrowed eyes. "You have been trying to get out of this inn without her for the last three days. What is so important that she can't shadow you?"

Josephine considered her options. She thought the likelihood that Cassandra would repeat this conversation to Adaar was low; she also thought that she was more likely to gain some kind of assistance if she was honest.

And she needed the assistance. Cassandra was right. She had been trying, ever since Adaar's meeting with Minister Bellise, to escape the inn they'd rented for the duration of their stay here. She'd walked the streets of Val Royeaux plenty. She just hadn't managed to do it without Adaar.

She gestured to the empty chair at the room's rough hewn desk. "May I sit?"

Cassandra tilted her head to the side, eyes slightly narrowed, and nodded.

Josephine sat. "I had a gift made for Her—for her. The Inquisitor." She didn't think Cassandra had noticed the slip, but she pressed quickly onward regardless. "For helping me with this…mess. I need to visit the shop here to pick it up, but the surprise would be somewhat ruined if she was looming over my shoulder while I did that."

"Oh. I see. That is...thoughtful of you." Cassandra looked like she might say something else, but she shook her head instead. "Still, I stand by what I said. She will want to come along. It puts her mind at ease."

"Yes, I know. Believe me, I am not trying to make her uneasy. I only want to be able to thank her, but I fear that as soon as we receive word that the contract has been nullified, and I'm able to move freely again, she'll…"

She didn't need to finish the sentence; she could see in Cassandra's face, which was not exactly given to deception, that she knew exactly what Adaar planned to do as soon as this was over. Josephine wished that she—that someone, anyone—could convince Adaar otherwise. She sat at that table downstairs where she could see the entrances and exits from sunrise to sunset, and probably earlier and later, too. She looked more worn by the day, not prepared for another long ride and conflict waiting at the end of it.

"Will this merchant only release the gift to you, or would a proxy be able to collect it?"

"I suppose a proxy could." Josephine mulled this over, tapping a finger to her lips. "But it would be hard to pull any of our guards away from their duties. The Inquisitor would surely question—"

"A guard, yes," Cassandra said. "But not me." She snorted. "She'll think I went in search of another book, probably. I have not heard the end of this business from her." She tapped one finger on the cover of the book lying on the bed.

"You would…" Josephine's heart lifted. "Really? Cassandra, I would be so grateful."

"Consider it done. She has been very unpleasant to travel with recently. I did not realize how much I liked her jokes and stories until she became so...moody." Cassandra made a disgruntled face. "Hopefully this gift of yours will help return her to her usual self."

"I hope so, too." _Among other things_ , Josephine thought. "I'll write something to the merchant, to explain. Laurine Boudet; she's on the Artists' Street."

Cassandra opened her book up again. "And I will go as soon as I've finished this chapter."

"Take your time." Josephine stood, feeling a hundred times lighter. "Thank you, Cassandra."

Cassandra only nodded, her eyes already traveling quickly across the page once more, and Josephine let herself out.

From here, at the railing that looked down into the lower level of the inn, she saw that Adaar still sat at that table. There was an untouched mug of ale at one corner, holding down one of the pieces of vellum strewn across the surface. She rested her chin on one hand, dark eyes downcast—maybe reading some of the reports Josephine had composed for her on the shaky political state of Orlais, or maybe trying, desperately, to stay awake. Once in a while, she stirred enough to look from one doorway to the next, then went back to her work.

Well, that was Josephine's next task. Once Cassandra was safely away, Josephine would lead Adaar in the opposite direction. Since she refused to rest, this was the only way that Josephine could convince her to step away from her post—well, after a fashion. It was more that her post moved, so she followed it. Josephine made sure to lead them only to shops where the entrances were few, and obvious, where Adaar did not need to have eyes in the back of her head to keep careful watch.

Josephine returned briefly to her room to dash off a note to Madame Laurine. She dripped wax on the folded paper, pressed her signet ring to it, and then left it with Cassandra, who waved away her thanks and went downstairs. She and Adaar exchanged a few brief words, but true to Cassandra's guess, Adaar had no issues with _her_ wandering off on her own.

Josephine waited a few more minutes, watching from the railing. Adaar shuffled a few pieces of paper. Her hand rested on her mug, briefly, but she didn't drink. She tugged thoughtfully on the end of her braid, tied with a piece of simple leather cord. Small wisps of her hair—dark, but with a peculiar gray cast that gave it an interesting depth—had pulled free of the plait.

Josephine's heart ached for her. Ached for her weariness, yes, wanted to smooth away the furrows that drew her brows together, but also ached just for _her_. They hadn't spoken again of their relationship; every time they came close, Adaar found a way to steer them around. Still thinking, still weighing. Josephine, true to her word, had held her tongue.

It was hard, when new arguments occurred to her every day—every hour, it seemed sometimes.

But she had to be patient. Adaar's concerns were not without foundation. She had the measure of the world; she saw it clearly. There _were_ people who would look at them askance: people Josephine knew in Antiva who would think that the level-headed Montilyet girl had fallen to flights of romantic fancy, as was inevitable, given her father's artistic spirit; people who saw Adaar as a tool instead of a person, and so would wonder how Josephine planned to use her; people who were too ignorant to learn the distinction between Vashoth and Tal-Vashoth and Qunari, who would think Josephine had become a puppet of the Qun. There had been whispers of that from the beginning, suggestions that the whole of the Inquisition was under the sway of some foreign power.

And Adaar had never cared about any of that before. Well, Josephine was sure that she cared; she just was very good at appearing as if she was above it all. Josephine had seen her keep a politely bland look on her face even while people stared at her, gawped at her, whispered behind their hands about her; even while visiting delegations to Haven and Skyhold had done their best to pretend that she wasn't in the room; even when their closest allies had treated her warily, had questioned her intentions. _I've had thirty years to get used to those kinds of looks_ , she'd told Josephine once. _I will survive._

It had eaten away at her while she survived it, though. How could it not? She enjoyed the friendship and respect she'd gained, but worried—understandably—that it could be taken from her, swept away as if it had never existed in the first place. As if she didn't have the right to it. As if she wasn't deserving.

Josephine would prove her wrong, given the opportunity. She'd dress her in a gown beautiful enough to complement, if not quite match, Adaar's own beauty. Drape her in some of the glittering jewelry Adaar had spoken of so flippantly, even if the look in her eyes had spoken of an emotion more like old, hopeful longing. Weave bright, lovely flowers through her long, lovely hair. Present her to the people Josephine _knew_ would appreciate her, starting with her own family. Her brothers would admire Adaar's habit of hard work even as they sometimes shirked their own duties; Yvette would hang on all of Adaar's exaggerated stories, a perfect audience; her mother would meet Adaar's dry humor word for word, and her father would look on it all with an indulgent smile, as long as Josephine was happy.

And their friends, their closest social circle...no matter how gauche, those people attended the salons Papa put on himself; they were indulgent of Yvette's many harebrained interruptions. They might blink in surprise at their first sight of Adaar, but by the end of an evening, they would adore her. Not as much as Josephine adored her— _that_ was impossible—but enough.

There were plenty of cruelties in this world, but Josephine would find some way to shield Adaar from them, to the best of her ability. If only Adaar would let her _try_.

She shook herself from her scheming and made for the stairs. In the meantime, she would do what she could to soothe Adaar's uneasiness, and pray that she would come around sooner rather than later.

Adaar looked up at her as she descended, a brief, slow smile spreading over her face, warming her eyes. Josephine's heart fluttered in her chest at the sight of it.

Adaar pushed out the chair across from her with her foot. "Coming to see me, my lady?"

Josephine sat, settling her skirts, tucking her ankles neatly against one another. "Who else?"

"Maybe you have urgent business with Bull," Adaar mused, glancing across to a corner of the tavern room, where Iron Bull and Dorian were in the midst of an animated conversation.

"I know better than to try to interject there," Josephine said, and Adaar chuckled. "I thought we might take a walk. There's a delightful seamstress just a few streets away. Beautiful fabric—silks, velvet, lace…my wardrobe is still woefully thin after Haven, and you ought to supplement yours, too."

"Me?" Adaar cast her a bemused look, eyebrows slightly raised. "What for?" 

There was a little wavy tendril of her hair that had fallen against her cheek. Josephine hated how tired she looked, but being a little _mussed_ , a little undone, did suit her. As if she'd just woken up; as if she smiled at Josephine from the other side of the pillow instead of the other side of the table—

She tried to clip that line of thought before it could spiral out of control. "You look very dashing in armor," she said, and Adaar snorted, but she didn't look displeased. "But it doesn't suit all circumstances. There are more events of a social nature in your near future."

Adaar plucked at the collar of her leather coat. "Wonderful. I'm sure you've guessed this, but I don't think I'd feel comfortable in…finery. I doubt I'd _look_ comfortable, either. There's just too many frills, and laces, and—"

"I promise you, this seamstress can make plenty of things that are perfectly comfortable. And elegant, but understated." Josephine eyed Adaar thoughtfully. "Many people wander the ballrooms of Val Royeaux wearing such exaggerated, fantastic pieces that the wearer is entirely overshadowed by them. That is not the goal, here. You will not be displaying frills and laces; whatever you wear must display _you_. Your power, your resolve…your beauty."

Adaar ducked her head, but not before Josephine saw her smile. "Flatterer. What do the courts care for my beauty?"

"Oh, they are blind to such things," Josephine said, flippantly, daringly. "But _I_ have eyes."

Adaar gave a breathless laugh that sounded very sweet indeed. "Well, then. I suppose I have been talked into a walk."

Josephine grinned in triumph and was halfway to her feet when one of the guards trotted up to their table. "Message for you, Ambassador," he said, laying the scroll on the table. "Runner just came and went. And from Skyhold, for you, Inquisitor." He handed a second, much smaller, scroll to Adaar—the paper thin, the better to be carried by raven.

Josephine gave the scroll on the table a long look. She could feel her heart beating in her ears, beneath her ribs, in her stomach—a nervous, anxious drumming so much less pleasant than the flutters Adaar inspired.

"This is the seal of the House of Repose," she said. 

Adaar paused in the act of slitting her own scroll open. Her eyes darted to the missive. "Read quickly."

Josephine fumbled a little on the seal, but rolled the paper open, held it in her hands. The culmination of all her work, all Adaar's patience—she hoped. Maker, how she hoped. She hoped so much that she was nearly blind with it.

She read the words rapidly. Once through, and then twice, to make sure it was not a hazy daydream. She let out a trembling breath she had not realized she'd been holding.

"They confirm that the Du Paraquettes have nullified the contract," she said. "There's no longer a price on my life."

Adaar slumped back in her seat, a marionette with her strings cut. Josephine was quite tempted to do the same. She was so stunned that she was not quite sure she had arrived at _relief_ yet.

"You're sure?" Adaar said, as though she couldn't help but ask. "It's not a trick, or a dupe, or…"

"It's their seal. Genuine. It's over."

Josephine steadied herself, trying to calm her racing thoughts, set them in order. She still needed to dispatch the new paperwork restoring her family's trading status; the couriers would have much less distance to travel this time. The arbiter still had to agree to uphold their earlier negotiations. 

But the worst of it…yes, the worst of it was done.

"I think I am so relieved that my fingers have gone numb," Adaar said—dryly, but a little faintly, too.

"That might be the exhaustion," Josephine pointed out. Just as she'd mentioned to Cassandra, just as she'd feared, she saw her window of opportunity closing, and leapt to hold it open. "I know you planned to set out again as soon as you could, but…might I convince you to stay in Val Royeaux, just for one more night? To celebrate?"

Adaar glanced at her over the scroll she'd just finished carefully prying open. Her hands were trembling a little. "Heard about that, did you?"

"I was not under the impression that it was a secret."

"It wasn't," Adaar sighed, bending her head to the page. "One more night couldn't do any harm, I guess. We'd only get a few hours down the road before we'd have to rest for the evening, anyway."

"Good. There is a lovely little restaurant here I think you'd like." Josephine lowered her voice. "The food at this inn is perfectly fine, mind, but we've had the same stew for three days."

A frown had appeared on Adaar's brow. Her eyes swept the flimsy page, back and forth, back and forth. "Yes," she muttered, but as if with only half a mind. "It's been sort of…lumpy…"

Josephine was so distracted by the thought of a candlelit dinner, free of worry—well, free of _immediate_ worry—and daydreams of a moonlit walk afterward where she might present Adaar with her gift, and what reaction she might receive to it, that it took her much too long to realize that Adaar had stopped reading; that she stared frozen at the page like it had driven a blade through her ribs.

A cold shiver of dread touched Josephine's nape. "What is it?" she asked.

It seemed as if Josephine's words unknotted a spell; Adaar shook her head, lurched back from the table. She rose to her feet with none of her usual grace. "I have to go," she said, her voice rough.

Josephine stood, too, just in time to catch Adaar's arm as she moved toward the stairs. "Go where? What's happened? Has Skyhold…?"

Adaar looked down at her, her eyes—which had gone distant and unfocused, panicked—catching on Josephine's face. "Nothing like that," she said, though the fine shiver in her voice was not particularly reassuring. "No, it's Duskfield. A letter from Jana arrived after we departed. I have to go home."

She offered the scroll to Josephine, and Josephine took it, aware that the entire room had quieted, aware that no one was staring at them but that plenty were waiting, breath baited, for whatever news had so unsettled Adaar. The letter was in Leliana's elegant, compact hand, describing the plea from Jana: the bandits that had taken the village, her flight to Tantervale to beg help, the city-state's forces stretched too thin to respond quickly, to help…

_I've sent word to my closest agents,_ Leliana had written. _They will offer what aid they can, but I thought that you would want to know._

Josephine knew that Leliana's closest agents could not exactly be _close_. The worst of the rifts, the fighting, had not yet bled over into the Free Marches; the Inquisition had only the lightest of presences there. And Duskfield, while close to Adaar's heart, held no real strategic importance as a result.

Leliana's intention was clear: she would not waste time by sending no one at all, but she had notified Adaar so that she could go herself.

Josephine looked from the page to Adaar's troubled, frightened features. "I will go with you," she declared.

For a moment, Adaar didn't react at all; then the furrow in her brow deepened. "Josephine—it will be—"

"Dangerous. I know. I said I would go, and I'm going." She put the scroll back in Adaar's hand.

Adaar's fingers curled around it automatically. "That was when we'd planned a leisure trip—I wouldn't hold you to—"

"I can help," Josephine said, making her voice firm, squaring her shoulders. "These are not rifts and demons. They are people. Perhaps they can still hear reason."

Adaar gave a broken, hopeless laugh. "You do have a way with words, I'll give you that, but it doesn't sound like these people do. It might come to bloodshed, anyway. Then what?"

"Then I will keep your old friends and neighbors calm and quiet and hidden while you do your work," she said. "And I know that you will not fail, so I will be perfectly safe."

Still, Adaar hesitated. Josephine could see the conflict all over her face. Josephine had just been safely delivered from mortal danger, and now she demanded to ride right back into it. Unnecessarily, in Adaar's opinion.

But Josephine had just proven, too, that she _could_ unknot an elaborate problem with words and promises. With a little help, and a little time. And this did not sound like nearly so elaborate a problem as the one that had just come unknotted.

Josephine told herself to be bold, and lifted her hand from Adaar's arm to touch her cheek instead. Adaar's eyes flicked away from her and back again, as if to warn her that there were others here, others who might talk about this little scene later.

A voice made of silverite within her said, _Let them_.

She would begin now to prove to Adaar what she had promised. That she did not care, and would not change her mind. That if this place, these people, were important to Adaar, then they were important to _her_ , status or strategic importance entirely aside.

"You risked much to help my family," she said quietly, for Adaar's ears alone. "To save _me_. I could not live with myself if I didn't help you when you needed me."

Adaar looked at her now. Her, and only her. "There is no debt between us. There is nothing to repay."

"I am not speaking of debt," Josephine said, so that Adaar could not misunderstand her.

Adaar held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded, the motion brief, her eyes closing. "Thank you."

Josephine let her hand fall, and did not linger to long on Adaar's acceptance. She did not want to give her the opportunity to change her mind. "We should travel light, I think. Light and fast."

Again, Adaar nodded. When her eyes opened again, the overwhelming emotion that had briefly brimmed there had banked somewhat. "None of the guards. Cassandra, Bull, and Dorian only."

"Finally, I will get a chance to see how you usually travel," Josephine said, teasing, hoping to lighten the burden on Adaar's heart just a little, and she was rewarded with a shaky smile. "Without all of this pomp and ceremony."

"You might regret that later," Adaar said. "Cassandra complains about the horses whenever the slightest opportunity presents itself, and Dorian complains about the cold whenever there's the slightest breeze, and Bull winds them both up for fun."

"But we usually have fresh roasted rabbit for dinner," Bull's voice said cheerfully from the other side of the table. "Where we heading, boss?"

Josephine knew that he had likely overheard everything, and Adaar obviously suspected it, too. "East," she said. "If you're willing to help with a personal errand."

"I, for one, love personal errands," Dorian put in.

Adaar rubbed at her temples. "All right. As soon as Cassandra returns…best pack up. I want to use the daylight we have left."

Josephine was grateful that she'd approached Cassandra an hour ago. She hadn't known how close she'd come to being unable to collect the gift at all. She mourned the idea of that candlelit dinner, the moonlit walk she'd imagined along Val Royeaux's waterfront, but she let the daydreams go.

She would find some other way.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend to leave this hanging for six months, but 2020 comes for us all, I suppose. I hope, if you're still reading, that you enjoy the conclusion.
> 
> My writers' group, jkateel and bossuary, were INSTRUMENTAL in helping me figure out these last few chapters. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

"See," Adaar said, pointing, "we’re nearly there."

She leaned a little to the left in her saddle, closer to Josephine, giving her a better trajectory to follow. Josephine's eyes narrowed, searching. At this distance, the landmark was still hard to make out if you didn’t know what you were looking for. 

"Strange," Josephine said. "That star appears to be moving."

"Dancing," Adaar corrected. "The old windmill is still lit. There must be _someone_ left." At Josephine's perplexed look, she explained, "The windmill’s practically center of town. Someone got the idea way back when to keep a brazier lit at the top. Like a lighthouse, kind of. Instead of bringing ships in to port, it guided the farmers and herders into town at the end of the day. When you’re closer in, it’s a good way for the neighborhood watch to mark where they’re patrolling overnight, too. From far off, though, it just looks like a dancing star."

Josephine nodded. "Clever. And if it’s still lit…"

"I can’t see bandits bothering to tend it, can you?"

"That depends on the breed of bandit." Josephine’s mare whickered, and she patted its mane absently. "I think this tells us something about what might be happening in Duskfield. Either your old neighbors have already driven the bandits off, and things have returned to normal...or the bandits have taken up residence here, kept all the old habits in place, so that your farmers and shepherds might keep operating. If that’s the case, they’re after some kind of long-term stability and supply."

"And that could be good or bad," Adaar agreed. "Maybe they’re just folk driven to desperation by the current unpleasantness."

"Or maybe they are Red Templars, establishing new routes through the Free Marches while we have been busy elsewhere." Josephine glanced sidelong at Adaar. "Rest assured I do not plan to negotiate with them, should that be the case."

Adaar forced a thin laugh. "I expected as much." She looked ahead again, at the Dancing Star, trying to find something red in the flicker of its light. It was still too far to tell; it looked perfectly normal, just as she remembered it, yellowish in hue. 

And if she did see a bit of red? More easily attributed to her imagination, fear, and anxiety. At this distance, it could be nothing else.

"If it’s an entire band," Josephine said, her voice lowering, "will you be able to manage on your own?"

Adaar glanced behind her, at Cassandra and Bull and Dorian, all riding quiet and alert. "We’ve managed an awful lot," she said. "And we could still run into Leliana’s people. There's some road left to go. If we don’t find them, I’ll sneak ahead to see what we’re working with before we go charging in."

"Is that wise? If you’re caught—"

"Would you rather send one of them?" Adaar asked, jerking her thumb at the others.

"I heard that," Bull said.

Adaar ignored him. "Cassandra makes a noise of incredible menace with every step she takes. Bull's worse, like a small earthquake. And Dorian can’t keep his mouth shut if there’s an opening for a witty quip."

"She’s right," Dorian said easily. "Adaar is the sneakiest giant you’ll ever meet. And that rates somewhat above the rest of us."

Josephine didn't look convinced. Worse, she looked _afraid_. Adaar tipped her head, silently asking Josephine to follow her ahead, out of earshot. The others kept to their own pace, allowing the road to spread out between them.

"Not reassured?" Adaar asked.

"I don’t doubt your skills. I just…" Josephine's fingers tightened on the reins. "If you’re caught, what then?"

"We’ll figure out the exact timeframe when we get closer, but if I’m not back in, say, an hour, the others can ride to the rescue."

"Has that ever happened before?"

Adaar figured it was best to be honest, but casual. "Sure."

Josephine’s lips thinned; she didn’t reply. Someone else in Adaar’s boots might’ve seen this as a good opportunity for comeuppance. They’d taken care of Josephine’s assassins _her_ way, and Adaar had lost a month’s worth of sleep in the process. Josephine would get a little taste of her own medicine.

But Adaar had never been accused of vengefulness. The idea of Josephine fretting down the road behind her only made her feel vaguely queasy and sad.

"Don’t get caught," Josephine said at last.

Adaar inclined her head. "I’ll do my level best."

"You have to remember that they chose Duskfield," Josephine went on. "Maybe it’s random, maybe they are just desperate people, but it seems an awful coincidence. If anyone bothered to learn enough about you, to try to lure you out, this is how they would do it."

"If it’s a trap, I have a light step. I won’t spring it."

Josephine gave a despairing laugh. "If there’s an opening for a witty quip, are you certain that _you_ will be able to restrain yourself?"

"In all things that matter, I am the picture of restraint."

She'd meant to sound cheerful; instead, the words were a little sour, and she turned her face away before her expression could add to the unintended effect. She didn't want to give Josephine another opening to make her case, not yet. Despite her words, her restraint had been wearing very thin indeed since their conversation on the road to Val Royeaux. One good snip would destroy those last tenuous threads.

But Josephine did not sound disappointed or angry when she replied, simply, "I know."

For a moment, Adaar thought she would leave it at that. They rode in the quiet, to the soft sounds of horses, for plenty of hoofbeats.

Then Josephine asked, "I've been wondering, how long have you...cared...about me?"

Adaar didn't have to answer. The question was put forward tentatively, feeling for where the boundary line was. Josephine would have understood if Adaar reminded her of her promise, the promise of space to think.

But thinking, so far, had gotten her nowhere. She kept chasing it round and round in her head, ever since that night on the road to Val Royeaux. She slept with her head pillowed on the shawl Josephine had left with her, and breathed her scent, and could not stop _wanting_ , no matter how much she wished to. Maybe a little talk wouldn't hurt.

"Too long," she said. "Embarrassingly long. Well before we left Haven."

She looked back to Josephine, who smiled and ducked her head, as if to hide it. "Me, too."

The words struck Adaar like a slap, rendering her speechless. She hunted for what to say, how to react, and came up with nothing more original than, "Really?"

"You sound surprised." There was a teasing note in Josephine's voice now.

"Well, you just didn't…" Adaar floundered. "I don't know. You didn't seem interested."

"Leliana has said that I was being dense," Josephine admitted, with as much dignity as could be mustered with such a sentence. "I only thought that...your attention was split so many ways. You had—have—a great deal to worry about. I didn't think there would be time. And if there was, I didn't see why you would choose to spend it with _me_."

Adaar shook her head, exasperated. "We’re a pair, aren’t we?"

"I certainly hope so," Josephine said archly, but her smile faded again as she looked ahead to the Dancing Star. "When this is over, can we revisit the issue of restraint?"

"Lady Montilyet," Adaar said, all feigned astonishment, "I had no idea your desires ran that way."

It had the intended effect. Josephine lost her worry again, face flushing, hand coming up to cover a surprised laugh. Adaar grinned, reveling in her small victory. It would help, for what was to come. It would carry her through to the other side.

"Don't worry," she added, squinting at the Dancing Star. "I have a plan."

* * *

The good news: they weren't Red Templars.

Adaar had been gone from home so long that there were people in the village she didn't recognize or know, but she'd gotten good at distinguishing _peasant_ from _combatant_ ; she observed carefully from her rooftop perch by The Wet Whistle's chimney stack, and she counted. It wasn't just about who wore armor, who carried weapons. It was body language, alertness. It was the berth that others gave them.

She'd arrived too late to count the bandits as they went into the tavern, but she counted them as they came out—and as a patrol cut through town and continued to the north. These ones carried obvious weapons, and they didn't sway when they walked. They were professional enough to keep their heads clear on duty.

Duskfield was a small village, and this company was enough to keep them cowed. She'd counted eight so far; she was sure there were more she was missing. She just wasn't sure what to do about them.

The bad news: she _knew_ some of them.

Only three, that she'd spotted and recognized. Old neighbors, around her age: Vilya, the blacksmith's daughter; Cossus, her younger brother; Herbert, one of the farmer's sons. He'd been friends with the other two, she remembered.

The others were strangers to her, but they held themselves with more confidence than these three by far. Had they been recruited? What had convinced them to allow these mercenaries to occupy the town, to throw their lot in with them?

She didn't have time in the hour allocated to her to figure out why they were here. She only knew she didn't like the occasional raucous laughter spilling from the tavern below her, or the way the rest of her old neighbors flinched out of the way when one of the rogues stalked past. They were not starving and desperate. They were hungry, but they were _waiting_.

And there was no sign of Leliana's people. They were on their own.

It was time to return to her companions. She'd learned what she could, precious little though it was, and maybe they would have better ideas. Josephine had spun gold out of less before. Delicately, silently, she crept down the roof and lowered herself to the ground.

Her feet had barely touched down before the point of a sword pricked at her spine. "Not so fast, Inquisitor."

She considered her options. Two shapes in the shadows of the barrels ahead of her formed up and revealed themselves to be people. They, too, held swords, so that was three—at minimum. She'd won out over worse odds before.

But she'd missed these three watching her. What else had she missed? She didn't want to get chin-deep in a fight where she didn't know the stakes. Maybe they needed her alive, but maybe they were happy to dogpile and kill her.

She didn't _know_ enough. Damn it.

"A welcoming party," she said. "Nice of you. I wasn't expecting such a fuss—"

The point of the sword jabbed harder. She sighed and stopped talking.

"I can't believe you actually showed," the voice behind her said. "When Moiraine pitched this idea to me, I almost punched her. 'Moiraine,' I said, 'she's _Qunari_ , what does she care about a bunch of human cattle in some nowhere village?' But tales kept spreading about you—how you'd stick your neck out for any refugee needing a blanket, even if they'd spit on the ground as you walked past." He spit on her boot, for emphasis. Nice aim. "Started to see the potential. Still, though. Didn't expect you to be stupid enough to take the bait."

He lapsed into silence. Adaar waited a moment, then said, "Just let me know when you actually need my input. Hard to tell if there was a question in there. I'm kind of slow, as you've figured out."

"Watch her," the voice said, and yanked her hands around to bind them behind her back. She resisted the urge to fight, mind working frantically. Did she know a Moiraine-the-bandit? No, she was fairly sure she didn't. Did she know _any_ Moiraine? She didn't think she'd ever heard the name before.

"Now," he said, yanking her daggers roughly from her back, "we're going to get comfortable and wait for your friends to come along. Then we'll have a nice little chat, and everyone can go home happy."

"My favorite part of the day," Adaar muttered.

Well, technically, at least, this was still part of the plan. Things had just accelerated somewhat. She was sure the others could work out the rest.

She'd been captured before, bound before. She stayed alert, but let her mind turn to more pleasant things. In similar situations, she'd thought of Josephine. She'd thought, _Well, we didn't have much of a chance, anyway_. She'd thought, _Maybe, if we'd had more time_ …

This time, though, she thought of Josephine's stately walk, of the fire burning in her eyes, of her sharp and clever tongue. She thought of Josephine riding to her rescue, and she smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

"She's late," Bull said.

Dorian rolled his eyes. "You don't say."

Cassandra, ignoring them both, continued to look toward the village through her spyglass. Josephine watched her, hands clammy. They were all awfully comfortable with the idea that something had already gone wrong. Perhaps from long practice. 

Josephine, unfortunately, wasn't practiced at all.

Cassandra lowered the spyglass. "That's the last of them."

"Really," Bull said, doubtfully. "All of 'em in the tavern?"

"Or standing around outside it." She tucked the spyglass into her belt. "Ten, all told. A few in older gear, but otherwise well-equipped."

"I'd've left some men out in the field. They have enough to spare for that. Catch us off-guard when we're in the middle of cracking heads."

"I believe they hope that if they are all in one place, you can be prevented from doing that," Dorian said dryly.

"We'll see how that works out for them."

"No change to the plan, then," Josephine broke in.

They all looked to her, as if they'd forgotten she was there. Fair enough. She wasn't _usually_ here when they did this kind of thing. And after this experience, she hoped she never would be again.

"If she wasn't fast enough to observe without being made, none of us are," Bull said. "So either she's injured or worse, and we need to ride to the rescue sooner rather than later—"

" _Bull_ ," Dorian said, not exasperated now, but sharp. Maybe Josephine's face had given away something of how she felt about this hypothetical scenario.

"—or she's just tied up, and we might as well get on with it," Bull went on, perfectly even. "We're not going to figure out more about these people by standing out here with our thumbs up our asses."

Dorian glared at Bull. "If they've gone to the trouble of luring her here, she's probably the picture of—"

"She'd rather know the score than listen to me lie," Bull interrupted.

"We don't gain anything by waiting," Cassandra said, taking over. "She is very good with those daggers, but not good enough to handle a dozen opponents at once."

"She lacks the reach," Bull agreed.

Josephine looked to Cassandra again, who looked back at her, frowning. "They're not Red Templars," she said, not reassuring—that was not Cassandra's forte—but simply conveying facts. "I'm certain of that much. Well-outfitted, but no identifying regalia."

"Professionals, then," Bull said. "Not hungry folk."

"I just imagined I would know more about them than that when I walked into this negotiation," Josephine said.

"We always knew that we would have limited information," Cassandra pointed out. "Besides, you have worked miracles before. I have watched you change the mood at many a meeting in a single blink."

"To you, it may certainly seem that way. There is a lot of groundwork before we reach that point." Josephine took a deep breath. "And the stakes here are higher."

"Nah," Bull said. "Just think—usually we have to do this part without you."

Dorian looked torn between outrage and amusement. "You are creating more and more problems for future Adaar, you know."

"She can handle it," Bull said easily, and winked at Josephine. Well, maybe he just blinked. It was hard to tell.

"Very well," Josephine said, ignoring all of this regardless. "Let's waste no more time."

They took the wagon-rutted road on foot, leaving the horses tied at the turnstile that marked the highway. Josephine took the opportunity, as they walked, to unwind the chain of office that had been packed carefully away in her saddlebags and don it again.

"If they are as well-researched as they seem," she said, to Cassandra's questioning look, "then best they know who they're dealing with from the outset."

Cassandra's mouth twitched toward a smile. "They may be so distracted by the idea of all the money they don't know that we don't have that it will all be over before opening remarks."

"You would like that," Josephine said mildly. "Given your distaste for wasting time."

"Mmm," Cassandra said, noncommittal, but still she smiled. She hadn't drawn her sword, but her hand rested on the pommel; she watched the fields, eyes seeking any sign of movement.

Josephine spoke more quietly this time. "Do you think she really could be injured?"

Cassandra's gaze flicked to her, just for a moment. She hesitated before answering. "Yes. Anything is possible. If this is a hopeful grab for money, though, they would be stupid to seriously wound her." She let out a barely-audible sigh. "As long as she keeps her mouth shut. But if these people know her...if they wish to harm her because of some personal vendetta...well, she is resilient. She will recover."

Adaar had once told Josephine a story too terrible to be false. Now she had a hard time forgetting it, the images it had evoked: the close cellar, the tortured sawing of blade against horn, the just-in-time arrival of the Valo-kas.

She'd promised Adaar that no one would do that to her, ever again. She hoped that she was not too late. 

"And if it's worse?" Josephine asked, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"She would fight," Cassandra said easily. "To her dying breath. We would already have heard the ruckus." She paused, considering. "And if she got the opportunity, she would run."

Josephine held onto that through the long walk down into the valley, where the light from the Dancing Star still gleamed, brighter and brighter, resolving clearly now into firelight, not a star at all. The others didn't talk much, either, all preparing in their own way: Cassandra, steadily alert; Bull, whistling a low tune; Dorian, fingers tapping out a rhythm on his staff; and Josephine, combing over the possibilities, trying to think of what she'd missed, trying to guess at every angle this adversary might arrive from.

Five mercenaries stood just outside the tavern building, bright with nervous energy. They perked up when they saw the group. "Nice of you to finally join us," one of them—a lean woman with her hair braided tightly out of the way—called out. "No funny business means no mages." She pointed at Dorian. "Give up your staff."

"Of course, good woman." Without any apparent hesitation, Dorian threw the stick at her, maybe a touch harder than necessary. She fumbled the catch a little.

"Boss wants to talk to someone agreeable," she said. She leaned the staff against the wall behind her. " _Amenable_ , like. Just one."

Some might call the diplomats, merchants, and nobles Josephine dealt with _mercenary_ , but she had rarely dealt with _actual_ mercenaries. Still, they were just people, in the end. People she wanted something from, who wanted something from her.

So she had gotten through many moments like this. She had just not been bargaining for her heart, then.

But her head took over. Like Adaar's long years of practice with a blade, Josephine had honed her craft until it was muscle memory, until it was second nature. She did not hesitate.

"Lady Josephine Montilyet," she said, stepping forward. She did not curtsy. "Chief Diplomat of the Inquisition. I believe that I will serve." Before they could get halfway through their uneasy looks to one another—maybe they hadn't bargained on quite so high an officer—she pressed ruthlessly on. "I must insist, however, that I bring some protection to the table. Cassandra will accompany me."

This was important; they would have a hard time inside, at the crucial moment, if only Adaar and Josephine were on hand to deal with the number Cassandra had marked going into the tavern—or, worse, if Adaar wasn't in there at all.

The woman said, "Boss said just one."

Josephine smiled, unthreatening, polite. "Two is not so different than one. We come in good faith; our mage has already surrendered his weapon; this is the nature of compromise."

With a scowl, the woman flung open the door to the tavern. Josephine heard the murmur of conversation through the thin walls. She listened with half an ear in case the words became discernible while she observed the others.

One of the men, standing a few feet to the right of the tavern door, had paled. His eyes flicked from Josephine's chain of office to the tall, tall points of Bull's horns. His armor was older than the rest, not as well-fitted or well-maintained. The mercenary standing beside him wore a similar outfit, but his jaw was set. He did not look at their group at all.

The woman reappeared, a sour twist to her mouth. "You two, go in." She gestured to Josephine and Cassandra. "You two, stay put." She pointed at Bull and Dorian. Bull made a display of scratching his belly and yawning.

"Thank you," Josephine said pleasantly, and led the way into the tavern.

It had been mostly cleared. There were a handful of small tables in front of the hearth, where three of the mercenaries stood; one of them broke off, following Josephine and Cassandra to the table that stood apart from the rest, where one man sat.

Adaar was on the ground behind him.

She still catalogued the rest of the room, took in all the information she could: a third mercenary near the hearth with lopsided leather armor; the old man behind the bar on the wall opposite, shoulders hunched, watching the room from beneath a furrowed brow; the man at the table, tossing one of Adaar's daggers idly as he watched them approach.

But she spared a heartbeat for Adaar, to feel the relief that she was alive, even if she couldn't allow it to show on her face.

Adaar knelt on the tavern floor, a mercenary to either side of her, their weapons already drawn, guarding. The neutral expression on her face spoke to how deeply annoyed she really was; Josephine had seen it now and then, when a visitor to Skyhold got too pushy with their demands. But her dark eyes met Josephine's, and they were steady, unafraid. There was a suspicious red shininess around one of her eyes, but she appeared otherwise unharmed.

They'd bound her hands behind her back, a problem she was likely already working on, especially now that the mercenaries were distracted by newcomers. Josephine would need to buy her time.

"Ah," Adaar said, breaking the silence. "The cavalry."

"Shut up," the man at the table said, eyeing Cassandra. "Moiraine failed to mention that your bodyguard is the bloody Hero of Orlais."

"I assure you," Cassandra said, in a tone that no one would have believed, "tales of my exploits have been greatly exaggerated."

It would be best to remove attention from her, immediately. "I don't think it's unreasonable to enlist such a chaperone," Josephine said, "considering the number of soldiers you have in this room."

Six, by her count. Just one more than Cassandra had marked. Bull and Dorian would have their hands full outside once it all began, and in these quarters, she would have a hard time keeping out of the way. It was several feet to the bar counter; she wondered if she would be fast enough to dive behind it before the mercenary standing behind _her_ could act.

She sat. The man at the table still held one of Adaar's daggers, though he'd stopped tossing it. The other lay on the table in front of him like a trophy. She heard the mercenary behind her settle into position—no weapon drawn, and within reach of Cassandra, but the casual threat was clear.

"I assume your lieutenant already introduced me," she said. The man across from her glanced at her chain of office, as if in acknowledgment. "Who do I have the pleasure of dealing with?"

He sneered. "Ellis Koster," he replied. "Of Koster's Carvers."

The company name didn't give Josephine much confidence, but she pressed on. "I wish we'd made this acquaintance under more pleasant circumstances, but we must make the best of what we have." She folded her hands on the table in front of her. "So, to business: what do you want?"

He pulled a folded slip of paper from his breastplate, placed it on the table, and slid it across to Josephine under the point of his forefinger. There was a smug look about his face, every movement slow and exaggerated, as if he'd always dreamed of doing it—holding all the power, dictating to others.

She had been afraid, waiting for Adaar's return, realizing she wasn't coming. But now—now, seeing this foul man put a price on the head of the woman she loved, seeing him crush it beneath his insignificant finger, she was angry. She was _furious_.

She took the paper, unfolded it, and read the sum with a carefully schooled expression. Even had she been seriously considering the ransom, it was a preposterous amount. No one could be under any illusions that the Inquisition had such deep coffers.

She adjusted her understanding of his intelligence.

"What offense has the Inquisitor made against you to make such an amount appropriate?" she asked, looking up again.

A little surprise tugged at his features. "Against me, personally? None."

"Then I find it hard to believe that you demand this payment seriously," Josephine said, setting the folded paper delicately on the table.

"This ain't a court, Ambassador. I've got something you want; you've got something I want. I baited a trap, and this is the tax you pay to get out of it."

"I see," Josephine said. "Well, then I think you know that this is far too much to demand for one person."

A little of the lurid anticipation fell from his face. "That so."

She did not elaborate; she simply waited, keeping all eyes on her. She had learned early in her career that silence was a powerful weapon. Even now, she saw it doing its insidious work: sowing doubt, planting second thoughts—not just in Koster, but in his thugs.

One, in particular. The woman by the hearth with the ill-fitting armor. The rest of them showed discomfort in other ways, in a hardening of the brow, a shifting of weight, but this one had panic in the twist of her mouth, in the nervous flex of her fingers.

The barkeep, by contrast, had stilled. He glared—not at Koster, Josephine, or Adaar, but at the nervous woman across the room.

Interesting.

"Because it seems to me," Koster said, breaking the silence, "that there's not much of an Inquisition without an _Inquisitor_."

Josephine felt the flush of a minor victory. He hadn't been able to outlast her, and now, whether he understood it or not, she had reclaimed some of the power he had tried to hold over her.

"The Rift is closed," Josephine said, choosing her tone carefully. Bored, relaying outdated facts. Her attention already turned to other, more serious things. "The days of paying off common thugs so that we can retain the Inquisitor's services are past. There is the matter of Corypheus, certainly, but we will be able to make do, I believe. After all," she gestured to Cassandra, "we are among esteemed company."

She sat back, physically signalling her disengagement, ignoring the discomfort of putting herself any nearer to the thug behind her. Adaar was no longer looking at her, she saw; she was instead focused on the mercenary by the hearth, the woman the barkeep was glaring at. She avoided Adaar's eyes. Her hands had curled into fists.

The barkeep knew this woman, Josephine realized. And so did Adaar.

"That's too bad," Koster said, drawing her attention back to him. "Too bad for you, I mean."

Josephine tilted her head to the side, as if vaguely curious. "Oh? How so?"

He put the dagger down on the table and leaned forward. "You can't imagine I'll let _you_ leave, Ambassador, if you don't give me what I want. The next person to sit in that chair might be more interested in playing ball if we have half your war table in our cellars."

Josephine allowed a beat of silence, and then she brought a hand to her mouth to cover an amused laugh.

"By all means, Messere," she said, twisting the honorific into a taunt. "Show us to our accommodations. We will see who decides to negotiate with you next. For your sake, I do hope Nightingale does not take an interest."

Finally, he betrayed a twitch of unease. She'd guessed correctly; his mercenaries had recognized her, and he had recognized Cassandra. Not a small leap to imagine he'd heard of Leliana—and some of her less savory methods of doing business.

Sometimes it was good to have questionable friends.

"Perhaps it's time for us to move on, then," Koster said, staring Josephine down. "We'll take what we need from these fine people and make ourselves scarce." He had an ugly, unkind grin. "Wouldn't do to leave anyone to tattle on us, though, would it?"

"You said no one would get hurt!" a new, shaking voice broke in.

Josephine judged it acceptable to look toward the woman. She'd taken a step forward from the hearth; the other mercenary, a few feet away from her, put his hand on the pommel of his sword, frowning.

"Vilya," Adaar said, her voice low, "don't—"

"I told you to shut up," Koster snapped over his shoulder. He pointed at Vilya. "And you—"

The situation was rapidly escalating out of her control, but Josephine had bought enough time. Adaar's gaze swept the room, cataloguing and assessing, muscles tensed on the verge of movement. She was ready.

Josephine caught Cassandra's eye and gave the tiniest of nods, one that Koster, distracted by a room of unraveling threads, wouldn't notice. Cassandra's sword made a magnificent, ominous sound as she pulled it from the sheath. All eyes went to her.

In that moment, Adaar was meant to act. Josephine was meant to dive for cover. 

But Josephine wanted more than to cower in a corner while others took care of this creature. He had made it necessary to say untrue things, words that had left such a sour taste in her mouth. She would play a small part more in his demise.

She snatched up Adaar's daggers.

"Catch!" she called, and threw the blades to Adaar.

Adaar was already moving. She had one foot planted on the floor beneath her; her hands, trailing snapped rope, reached up to pluck the clumsily-thrown daggers from midair. Her rise was graceful, effortless, and as she straightened to a height taller than either mercenary flanking her, she left a dagger in each of their chests. She never took her eyes from Josephine.

"Duck," she replied.

The room erupted. Josephine scrambled under the negotiation table. She heard the whistle of a near miss above her; the mercenary standing guard over her had acted, but too late. Only a second later, his body thudded to the ground behind her. Cassandra's sword had found an opening.

_Three down,_ she thought, pulling her knees tight to her chest, so as to present the smallest possible target.

From her vantage point, she couldn't see much. She saw Koster's boots and Adaar's bare feet, moving, in and out, back and forth; she heard the snarls of his rage and Adaar's eerie silence. When she dared glance over to her right, she saw Cassandra's greaves, the occasional flash as the firelight reflected off her sword—and her opponent's. She kept him crowded near the hearth, blocking his path to his commander.

Vilya's was the only face Josephine could see. She'd backed into the far corner, huddled on the ground behind the tables and chairs.

Josephine returned her attention to the fight in front of her. She stared at the light way Adaar's feet moved across the dirty floorboards. Her footing was so sure, so graceful. Koster lunged and hacked, and Adaar, without the benefit of armor or boots, moved fluidly out of his way—and yet, at the same time, closer. Trying to get inside the reach of his weapon. There was a yelp—she'd made contact—and then an angry bellow; her points made, Adaar slipped out of reach.

But Koster was not ready to give up. Josephine had hoped that the blood now dotting the floor would slow him down; instead, he stopped swinging so wildly, waited, focused. She heard him give a mean, breathless laugh, and her blood ran cold.

"I've heard tales of your skill," he said. "Glad you measured up to the challenge. But someone got the better of you once. Maybe I'll take the other horn, as a trophy."

Adaar didn't rise to the bait. Josephine had seen her temper, secret, boiling. But she directed it as she liked; it did not direct her.

Josephine could hear the smile in her voice. "I've been saying for years that I'm just not symmetrical anymore."

The battle rejoined. Their feet moved faster now, the movements so quick they left Josephine breathless. She clenched her fists and watched, not daring to blink.

Now and then, she saw the length of Koster's sword, just barely sweeping into view. It was after one such upswing that she heard a dull, sickening _thud_.

Adaar had frozen in place, her stance unbalanced, wobbling. Koster gave another nasty laugh. Josephine tossed a panicked look toward Cassandra, but she was still occupied with the other mercenary.

She cast around frantically for a weapon, found her guard's fallen sword, and snatched it up. Then she crawled toward the fight, the scene coming into view as she peered out from beneath the table.

Koster's sword was stuck in Adaar's horn. Josephine's heart seized, but Adaar was smirking, and after a second's panic, Josephine understood why: the sword was truly _stuck_ , about a third of the blade's width trapped in the horn. Koster pulled and pulled at it, the look on his face transforming from triumph to concern, and Adaar only turned her head in a way that made pulling it free harder.

"Sorry, is the angle bad?" Adaar asked, all innocence.

The next time he pulled, she pulled too, away from his sword. The sudden release of the blade threw him off-balance; he caught himself on the backfoot, but not fast enough. Adaar had used the moment to move in, lightning-quick, daggers extended. She crashed into him, toppling them both to the floor.

For a long, terrifying moment, they both lay still. Josephine could not move, could not breathe— 

Then Adaar, with a hard exhale, rolled off Koster's body. The hilts of her two daggers stuck up from his torso. One had left his breastplate askew, no longer protecting his ribs; Adaar must have cut the leather fasteners that held front to back, at his sides, on an earlier pass.

The other, she'd left in his neck. Blood was still pumping from that wound, though sluggishly. Josephine's stomach turned, but she ignored it. She scrambled out from beneath the table, around Koster's body, and to Adaar, who still lay on her back, breathing heavily, mouth twisted in a grimace of pain.

Closer now, without a sword in the way, Josephine saw why. Koster's sword had clipped the pointed tip of Adaar's ear in its doomed arc toward her horn; the wound was still bleeding.

"I don't think he understood _symmetry_ ," Adaar said, fumbling to feel at her ear. She smiled at Josephine. "Were you going to duel him?"

Josephine stared at her, uncomprehending, then remembered the sword in her hand; with a noise of disgust, she tossed it away with a clatter. She caught Adaar's hand instead, pulling it away from the wound.

Footsteps approached from behind, and Josephine tensed, but then Cassandra asked, "Are you well?"

"Fine," Adaar said. "Thanks for the rescue."

Cassandra snorted. "What will we do with this one?"

Josephine turned. Cassandra held Vilya by the shoulder. The woman stared at the ground. The other mercenary lay dead on the floor beside the hearth.

"Herah," a reedy voice said—the barkeep, shuffling toward them with the aid of a walking stick. "I mean, Your Worship—"

"Don't start with the holiness stuff, Hammond." Adaar sat up with a grunt, holding fast to Josephine's hand. "Please."

"Well." Hammond cleared his throat. "You're not going to hurt her, are you? She's been awfully stupid, but...she didn't fight."

Adaar looked at Vilya and sighed. "I don't want to. But I do want to know what's going on. What _happened_ , Vilya?"

For a moment, Josephine was sure that Vilya would keep quiet—but then she spoke, low and fast, not looking up from the ground. "Trade's been bad. Crops didn't do well this year. Everybody says the war's coming this way, if we don't starve to death first, and when Koster came along, he said he could help us. Get the Inquisition to protect us."

"You knew he was going to lure me here," Adaar said.

"He made it sound so easy! Made it sound like you'd just pay up and be on your way. He said you wouldn't miss it. And the Inquisition wouldn't leave us vulnerable again, after that." Her voice was thick with tears. Josephine felt a pang of sympathy. Here were their desperate folk, driven to desperate things.

"Who else?" Adaar asked.

"Just Cossus and Herbert. I swear."

"They came in one night with those Carvers," Hammond said, "leading the way. No one in town's spoken to them since. They've been sleeping here." He shot a look at Vilya. "Not by my choice."

Adaar rubbed her unbloodied hand over her forehead. "Well, Vilya," she said, "you—and Cossus and Herbert, assuming they were smart enough to surrender—have two options, the way I see it. You can beg your families' forgiveness, work off your guilt here. Or, if you really want the protection of the Inquisition, you can work for it."

Vilya finally looked up. She swiped at her eyes with a fist. "Can we...can we think about it?"

"Think fast. I'm not staying long." Adaar nodded to Cassandra. "See if Bull and Dorian need help. And keep an eye on her and her friends until someone else can."

"Come," Cassandra said to Vilya, pushing at her shoulder.

"Herah," Vilya said, still tearful. Now that she'd looked up, her eyes were fixed on the blood streaking down Adaar's cheek, down her neck. "I'm—"

Adaar waved her off. "Don't say it til you mean it."

Cassandra prodded Vilya along to the door. When it opened, noise poured in: Bull in the midst of a lecture on company ethics; fire crackling beneath the occasional yelp. The door swung shut again, muffling the sound.

Adaar let out another deep, bone-weary sigh. "Sorry about the mess, Hammond."

The barkeep scoffed. "We'll set Vilya and her friends to scrubbing. The blood'll be out in no time, or we'll have them laying a new floor. I'll get you a rag for that bleeding."

"My bag—"

"They took it downstairs. I'll fetch that, too."

Hammond shuffled off behind the bar. Josephine waited until his footsteps had faded, and then she asked, quietly, "Are you all right?"

"Could have been better," Adaar said. "Could have been worse."

"That does not answer my question."

Adaar met her gaze. "I don't think I can leave this place unguarded. There are other Kosters out there." She shook her head. "And other Vilyas. I'm sorry. I know we're stretched thin."

Josephine brought her other hand to cover Adaar's and squeezed. "We will make do."

Adaar's lips quirked up on one side in a tiny, crooked smile. "You know, when you say that, no matter how impossible the task seems, I believe you. Especially after _that_ display." Her eyes danced. "It's a pleasure to watch you work."

"Oh, that man was _insufferable_ ," Josephine said darkly. "I could have carried on for another quarter-hour and still found more ego to chip away at!"

Adaar laughed. The sound, bright and joyful, was infectious; Josephine found herself laughing, too, on the verge of hysteria, all her relief pouring out in a flood.

"That business with the little piece of paper," Adaar choked out, between gasps, "can you _believe_ …"

"You didn't see his face," Josephine said, wiping at her eyes. "He was so _sure_ —"

"You _showed_ him."

"No, my dear, I think _you_ showed him, in the end."

Adaar pulled her hand free from Josephine's grasp, but only to reach out, to sweep Josephine fully against her as their laughter died down to chuckles and hiccups. Josephine wound her arms around Adaar in return, pressing close to her welcome, living warmth, savoring it.

"You shouldn't have grabbed the daggers," Adaar admonished. 

"You shouldn't have gotten caught!"

Adaar let out another chuckle. The sound rumbled pleasantly beneath Josephine's cheek. "Fine. We're even."

Adaar pulled back, just enough to look down at her. She tucked an errant strand of hair behind Josephine's ear.

"Thank you," she said softly.

Josephine's heart leapt. Gone were her old doubts; she recognized the intent in that look, the affection, and leaned a little closer— 

"We can put you all up in some of the rooms, Herah," Hammond said, and they both jumped. He hoisted Adaar's pack up onto the bar counter and brandished a wet rag. "You'd better get that wound seen to."

"Right," Adaar said, and with a rueful smile at Josephine, she gently pulled away and got to her feet. She offered a hand to help Josephine up. "Getting blood everywhere."

"You ought to stay," Hammond continued. "For a few days, at least. People'll be happy to see you. You take your sweet time between visits."

"Yes, I was a little preoccupied with the giant hole in the sky for a while—"

"You been Inquisitor for ten years?" Hammond interrupted.

Adaar stared for a moment, then shook her head. "No, messere," she said, much more meekly.

"I thought not. Now, you get yourself cleaned up, and we'll have a proper homecoming." He made for the front door of the tavern. As the door swung shut, Josephine heard him barking names.

"You hear that old codger?" Adaar asked wonderingly. "I lose a piece of my ear, and he wants to have a party."

Josephine tried very hard not to burst out laughing again. She almost succeeded.


	9. Chapter 9

It was a good party, but Adaar's mood just wasn't right for it.

She'd drunk enough to set her stomach churning, enough to dull the pain of her superficial wounds, but not enough to muddle her head. No, that seemed dangerous. Everyone in the village, even Hammond, swore up and down that all of Koster's Carvers had been caught up in the tavern and outside of it—but maybe they were mistaken. A cruel voice in the back of her head whispered, _Or maybe they're lying._

She wanted to believe that becoming Inquisitor had made her paranoid, but really, ever since that night in the cellar, ever since someone had taken a saw to one of her horns, it had been there, underlying. Her current circumstances just...exacerbated it.

She didn't like to feel that she needed to watch her back when she came home. Made it feel like it wasn't _home_ anymore.

Maybe it wasn't, little though she wanted to admit it. Before the hole in the sky, she'd returned once a year, maybe twice if the Valo-kas happened to be passing nearby. Was it really home if she spent only a handful of nights there every year? Or was it just a place she went to visit ghosts, ghosts who'd taken _home_ with them when they went?

She made her way down the narrow path in the dark, putting the party at her back: Hammond, merrily passing out the local brew, espousing its virtues to Cassandra; Harriet, playing a jig on the accordion, Dorian and Bull in the midst of the dancing crowd, red with laughter; Marguerite and Wilfred and Lonnie, gathered around a card table, groaning as Josephine took another round with a look of polite glee. Josephine, drinking Hammond's beer like she didn't mind the taste. Josephine, catching Adaar's eye above the heads of the dancers...

There would be time for that. Soon.

She kept the lantern she carried shuttered, unwilling to ruin her night vision, and besides, she'd always liked the fields of Duskfield under the stars. It was a far cry from Skyhold, that was for sure. You could see Skyhold burning miles off, up there in the mountain ahead of you; if she turned back now, the fires of the celebration would already be nearly out of sight. Only the Dancing Star would remain.

She came to the turnstile. Her father's handwriting had faded with the sun, and she hadn't re-inked it in a long while—hadn't had the chance or the time. She trailed her fingers over the word they'd brought with them from Par Vollen, the word that had failed so bitterly in its duty of care to define them, the word she carried. She walked on. 

The house, merely a dark, empty shape among a missing piece of the field, came into view. Every time she returned, she found herself surprised by its size, by the idea that she and two others had fit there. It seemed desperately small now, compared to the world she'd walked, putting holes in her boots.

She veered away, off into the field on the left. The house would be there, when she was ready. But the ghosts could not wait another minute.

Through the waving grains, toward the tree that stood stark and twisted against the starry sky, oddly bleached in the moonlight. The field parted to the little clearing, its careful rock formations intact. She released a breath. Jana had kept care of this place. Even the bench beneath the tree only had a few dead leaves; Adaar carefully brushed them aside.

But she didn't sit on the bench. She stood before the gravemarkers instead, letting a little more light from the lantern out, the better to see.

Hammond had helped her carve them. He'd taken the chisel from her whenever she'd wept too bitterly to continue. Silently offered her a handkerchief when she was ready to press on. She'd seen a few tears sneak down his old face in those hours of labor, too. She'd felt, fiercely, that her parents had been loved—that _she_ had been loved.

"This doesn't change that," she said aloud, though no one was there to hear her. "I know it doesn't. I know that's what you would say. I just wish you were here to say it, dammit." She drew a shaky breath. "Where are my manners? Hi, Ma. Hi, Dad. You would never believe what's happened to me, and I don't think I could explain it if I tried. I just want to sit with you for a while, if you don't mind."

She put the lantern on the ground beside her when she sat. The low breeze rustled in the tree's leaves, in the grain. Here, so far from everything, she could almost believe the world was the same as it had always been, that these past few months had not happened at all. It was unchanged, here, where she'd written _Beloved Husband, Beloved Father; Beloved Wife, Beloved Mother_ on the stones. _She_ was unchanged.

"I'll skip all the nonsense," she said, when she'd been quiet long enough to regain her composure. "But help me get this piece right in my head. I've met someone. She's...hmm. She's not what you'd expect, I think. As different from me as it is possible to be. But she's also brave, and clever, and kind. I think you'd like her." She paused, tipping her head back to let the breeze catch her hair, ruffling up her hair like her father's hand, like her mother's kiss. " _I_ like her. But I'm afraid of her." 

With the words out in the open like that, they seemed very silly. She snorted. "I know it's stupid. But...hell, you both must have been afraid, right? You loved each other so much that you left everything else you knew. Sacrificed everything else you'd ever known. Each of your societies, and your collective society, combined. And you were _happy_. I saw it. I felt it." She drew a deep, shuddering breath. "I don't know if it's going to work out the same way for me, but you were right. What's life without a little risk, once in a while? And besides, I think...I think it might be time for me to move my roots somewhere else. For there to be a somewhere else for my roots to _go_. If there's a somewhere else left, after all my nonsense is through, anyway."

She brushed her fingers over the grave markers, over the words. They weren't here. Of course they weren't. They weren't sleeping forever in the dirt beneath her. Their ashes had been flung wide across these fields, over the place they'd chosen. It was the only place that had made sense to her. Give them back to the earth that had known such love, such care, from their hands.

They weren't here. But she felt them, anyway. The sharp edges of memory had faded, and she knew they would continue to crumble, but even when everything was out of focus, someday, she would still know them. Would know, always, what they wanted for her.

"You dreamed of bigger things," she said, her throat tight. "Guess I got it from somewhere, huh?"

Heartsore but decided, she stayed there, beside the markers, watching the stars, thinking. She wondered if they'd gone through this part, too. If, even when they'd decided, they'd been terrified out of their minds.

Probably. Probably they'd stayed scared for a long time. But it had been worth it.

She'd been there an hour, sore and tired and a little chilled, before she heard a voice call softly in the distance, "Adaar?"

Her heart spasmed painfully. She sat up a little from where she'd been slouched against the bench. The voice came again, closer this time, but the word had changed: "Herah? Are you out here?"

She steadied herself and called back, "Over here." She raised a hand, high enough to be seen above the grain in the slight glow of the lantern light, and waved.

Josephine emerged into the clearing, blinking a little; she carried her own lantern, but almost entirely shuttered, like Adaar's had been. She'd taken her hair out of all of its elaborate braids so that it fell, loose with waves, around her shoulders. There was a worried twist to her mouth, and Adaar felt a surge of guilt; she really ought to have told someone, _anyone_ , that she was slipping away.

"Hammond told me you were probably out this way," Josephine said. Her eyes found the markers. "If I'm intruding—"

"Nah." Adaar waved this off. "I've been moping out here long enough. They'd want me to pull myself together."

Josephine offered a tentative smile, and sat on the ground, tucking her skirts beneath her, not terribly near Adaar but not terribly far, either. "I've never known you to mope."

"I wisely do it out of sight of other people, for the benefit of all."

Josephine tilted her head a bit to one side. "Except you."

Adaar released a startled laugh. "How do you figure?"

Josephine looked to the markers, her eyes passing slowly over the letters. "If you mope alone, you have no one to comfort you."

"I suppose I'll have to carry on, then," Adaar said, "since you're here to comfort me."

Josephine gave her own breathless laugh, and offered her hand out, across the small distance between them. Adaar took it, intertwining their fingers.

Josephine looked up to the tree's canopy. "This is the oak?"

"Yes," Adaar said, unable to conceal how pleased she was that Josephine had remembered. "They added the bench, not long after they arrived. It felt like the right place for them, after they died. Sometimes, when I was a child, I'd wake up in the middle of the night, and I'd see this glow in the distance, beneath the tree."

"It sounds as if they truly loved one another." Adaar did not think she was imagining the wistfulness in Josephine's voice.

"It was embarrassing to me, back then. Now, I—I see how precious it was, what they had."

Josephine nodded, but didn't say anything more. They sat in a comfortable quiet for a little while; Josephine turned her face into the breeze now and then. The cozy, combined glow of their lanterns created a little pocket in this clearing, as if the rest of the world was held at bay by the shine, just for a little while. A secret, away from everything.

Adaar touched her father's gravemarker one more time, silently asking to borrow his courage. "Want to see the house?" she asked Josephine.

Josephine's face brightened. Surely she'd seen the shape of it as she'd walked past, searching for Adaar. Surely she knew it was nothing special. But she said, "Of course," as though delighted at the prospect.

Adaar got to her feet first, then helped Josephine up. They picked up their lanterns and moved away, back toward the path. As they walked, the backs of their hands brushed; Adaar took Josephine's hand this time, and she didn't pull away.

"Jana built her own place, a little further down the road," Adaar said, and pointed with her lantern past the closer house. Barely visible in the dark was another huddled shape among the fields. "She stayed in my parents' house, at first, but I think it felt too strange to her. Like I would have felt to keep living there, almost."

"Among memories," Josephine said.

"Right. But she comes through every month or so, dusts, airs the place out. I was never able to give much notice before I passed through."

"She wanted you to have a place to come back to."

"Yes," Adaar said, and left it at that.

They'd reached the clearing, the yard; together, they stood before the darkened house. She hesitated, but only for an instant.

"Come see," she said, leading the way toward the door.

The inside was much as it had always been: there, the humble kitchen off to the right with its hearth, shutters closed tight over the windows; there, the old armchair her mother had once sat in to darn socks, where she'd nursed her newborn child; there, the door to a passageway that could barely be called a hall, and two more doors at the end of it, leading to the two bedrooms. One—Adaar's—had been an addition to the original house, built by her parents. Jana and some of the other villagers had helped.

Despite the frequent airing, it still had the faint scent of misuse, of absence. It had always smelled of something delicious, a warm crackling fire, the spring breeze, when her parents had lived. Now it seemed a painful, empty shell.

There was a faint creak; she startled and looked around. Josephine moved systematically shutter to shutter, throwing them open. The night air drifted in, chasing away the stillness of neglect. Josephine leaned against one windowsill with a sigh, the breeze tugging at her hair.

"It's peaceful," she said over her shoulder. "A good place to grow up."

"It was," Adaar agreed, putting her lantern down on the kitchen table beside Josephine's. "Not…not _magnificent_ , or anything, but still good."

Josephine turned to face her with a frown. "Not everything needs to be _magnificent_."

"Peace." Adaar shifted uneasily. "I know."

Josephine leaned back against the windowsill, her expression softening a little. "What's troubling you, Herah?"

A little of Adaar's anxiety melted away at that gentle voice, speaking her name. She took in a low breath. "You were right," she said. "I was afraid. I _am_ afraid."

Josephine took a hesitant step closer. "Of what?"

"Oh, lots of stupid things." Adaar rubbed at her forehead. "That your family won't approve. That people will make snide remarks to you. That you'll have to work harder to extract what we need from our allies. That it will all add up, in the end, and we'll see that this was doomed from the start, and have only bitterness left for each other."

"Small worries," Josephine said, teasing but not dismissive. "Do not doom us before we've even had the chance to begin."

"You really don't worry about that? Any of it?"

"I can refute your points one by one, if you like."

Adaar gestured for her to go on. "Convince me, Ambassador."

She liked the coy little smile that came onto Josephine's face at those words. It was wonderfully distracting.

"My family, whenever we choose to make public declarations, will be all astonishment," she said thoughtfully. "Scandalized, but delighted. I've always been the pragmatic daughter, with no tendency toward feelings or frivolities. It will be such a relief to them that they'll hardly register _who_ I have chosen, and when they do, they'll fall over themselves thanking you."

Adaar couldn't help but chuckle. Josephine smiled a little wider and continued.

"I have no fear of snide remarks. Frankly, the topics for condescension have been a little stale lately; perhaps this will liven them up. Besides, I have an arsenal of my own. I'm always looking for an excuse to use them. As for our allies...well, turnabout is fair play. They are hiding plenty of things that they think are salacious. I'm not above leaning on those secrets a little harder."

"You make interesting points," Adaar allowed. "And these?"

She unsheathed her daggers, dropping them one by one to the kitchen table. Josephine came forward, stopping just short of Adaar. Lightly, she touched one blade.

"You saved my life with these," she said softly. "You use them to great effect, never without thought, usually in the name of protecting others. But you have not fooled me into thinking they define you. They are only a part of you."

She looked up at Adaar; Adaar looked back, torn, wanting.

"That's the thing," she said. "It used to be simple, and now it's hideously complicated. If I went back to the Valo-kas, I wouldn't fit. Even coming back _here_ , I don't fit. And I don't think I've quite made the leap to your world, either."

"And you don't need to. There is no _my world_. I do not have the authority to offer you something so abstract. There is just me. For now—to start—I would just ask you for a little time."

Josephine slipped a hand into the pocket of her dress, withdrawing a small, beautiful wooden box, polished to a high shine; even the golden hinges gleamed. She took Adaar's hand, turned it palm-up, and placed the box there. It fit neatly.

"What's this?" Adaar asked, momentarily thrown.

"A gift." Adaar got the feeling that Josephine had bitten her tongue on, _Obviously_.

"What for?"

She actually rolled her eyes, contrast to her fond smile. "As if you've ever made an excuse for the trinkets you give to me." At Adaar's raised brows, she huffed and said, "Very well, it is technically thanks for helping me with the House of Repose. In reality, though, I commissioned it as soon as you showed me the sketch."

"The sketch?" Adaar repeated, completely bemused now. "What sketch?"

"Open it and see."

Careful not to leave any marks in the varnish, Adaar opened the box. Nestled on a bed of dark green velvet was a delicate hourglass, gleaming in the faint light.

"I'm afraid I could only replicate one of the materials closely," Josephine said. Adaar lifted the dainty golden chain with numb fingers. "Wood, from a tree in Antiva. On the Montilyet estate, in fact. I'm certain it's not the same tree, but based on the sketch and the notes, I believe it's the same species."

Adaar could not have replied even if she'd known what to say; her tongue, usually so given to trip ahead of her thoughts, lay useless in her mouth. All the hair on her neck, her arms, stood on end. A ghost had walked right through her.

"And the gold your father used," Josephine continued, "that, of course, is irreplaceable, but the Valo-kas donated some for the purpose. The sand...Par Vollen is well out of even my reach, but I had some gathered on the shores of Haven. I remember…" Here, at last, she hesitated. "You seemed at home there. More so than in Skyhold. I thought you might like to carry it with you."

"You had the sketch in your hand for all of a moment," Adaar said, finding her voice at last. "How did you...it looks _just_ like…"

"I have a good memory," Josephine said, with a modest smile. 

"I…" Adaar shook her head. "I don't know what to say."

"I have achieved the impossible. Herah Adaar, speechless." Some of Josephine's delight faded. "I hope I haven't overstepped. You do like it?"

Adaar held the hourglass out to Josephine. "Help me put it on?"

Josephine took it, plainly relieved. With deft fingers, she loosed the clasp, then fastened the chain around Adaar's neck; Adaar could feel her breath, just briefly, against her skin. She arranged the hourglass carefully, letting it fall into the V of Adaar's shirt, a little cool against her skin.

"I don't know how I'll ever repay you," Adaar said hoarsely.

"There is nothing to repay. This is a gift without strings. Though perhaps it lends a little weight to my request." Finally, Josephine's voice showed her nerves; it trembled a little. "I only ask for the next turn of the hourglass. That you set aside what you think _might_ come, what _might_ happen. Be with me, and when the sand runs out again, we will take stock of where we stand. Please?"

Adaar scraped a hand through her hair, driving the loose strands back from her face. "As we've established already, I can't say no to you."

Josephine's eyes gleamed. "That's not the same as saying _yes_."

There was not so much distance left between them now; Josephine had worked at it, chipping away right under Adaar's nose. The last of it fell away as she cupped Josephine's chin in her hand and bent her head to press her lips to Josephine's.

There had been a desperation, a stolen quality, to those other kisses—like a woman taking panicked gulps from the paltry spring she'd found in the desert, afraid that she would never drink again. But this was another thing entirely, a slow delight, something to be savored. She took her time, teased apart Josephine's lips with aching slowness, tangled her hand in Josephine's half-undone hair, lost herself in the sound of pleasure Josephine made in her throat.

When they parted, she drew just enough air to say, emphatically, " _Yes_."

Josephine did not wait for any further explanation; she, like Adaar, seemed to have decided that the time for conversation was past. She went up on tiptoe to kiss Adaar again, and Adaar picked her up to make it easier for her, arms tight around Josephine's waist. Josephine gave a breathless laugh of delight against her mouth. 

Adaar would still worry, she knew. But for now, she would set the trappings of fear aside. She would see where this turn of the hourglass took them.


End file.
